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THE BIBLE 



MODERN THOUGHT 






BY THE 

REV. t! R. BIRKS, M.A., 

RECTOR OF KELSHALL, HERTS. 



NEW EDITION, WITH AN APPENDIX. 



LONDON: 
THE EELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY; 

56, PATERNOSTER EOW ; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD : 

AND 164, PICCADILLY : 

AND SOLD BT THE BOOKSELLERS. 

1862. 



ys 









LONDON: PRINTED 11Y W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CI1ARINC. CROSS. 



PREFACE. 



The present volume was written last spring, in com- 
pliance with a request from the Committee of the Tract 
Society, in order to supply some antidote, in a popular 
form, to that dangerous school of thought, which denies 
the miracles of the Bible, explains away its prophecies, 
and sets aside its Divine authority. Yarious circum- 
stances have occasioned some unexpected delay in its 
publication. Though suggested by the appearance of 
the Essays and Reviews, which have gained so wide a 
notoriety, it is not, of course, a direct and formal reply 
to them. It is designed for the use of thoughtful Chris- 
tians, or serious inquirers, who may have been per- 
plexed by modern speculations, and not for scholars 
and learned divines. My aim has been to treat the 
subject of the Christian evidences and the authority of 
the Bible in a simple, clear, and solid style of argument, 
logically connected and continuous ; and to deal with 
recent objections only so far as they lie directly in the 
way, and, like the lions in the allegory, block up the 
road of the Christian pilgrim to the palace of heavenly 
truth. At the same time, the fourth chapter, on the 
Reasonableness of Miracles ; the eighth, on the Pro- 
phecies of the Old Testament ; the twelfth and thir- 
teenth, on the Interpretation of Scripture, and on its 



iv PREFACE. 

Alleged Discrepancies ; the fourteenth, and fifteenth, on 
Modern Science ; and the sixteenth, on the Bible and 
Natural Conscience, contain a full discussion of the 
principles advanced in the Third, the Second, the 
Seventh, the Fifth, and the First Essays. But my 
desire has been not so much to detect and expose error 
as to unfold the truth, and guide the minds of sincere 
inquirers into a well-grounded faith in the truth, wis- 
dom, harmony, and Divine authority of the Gospel, and 
of the written word of God. May it please the Holy 
Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, to use it, however 
humble in itself, for a help to the faith of the people of 
Christ in these latter days. 

Kehhall Redonj, 

Oct 10, 1861. 



The appendix of the present edition contains five 
notes on topics connected with the main subject. The 
first, on the Evidential School of Theology, examines 
the statements of the Sixth Essay. The second en- 
deavours to throw some fight on the controversy occa- 
sioned by the Bampton Lectures on the Limits of Ee- 
ligious Thought. The third selects four topics, from 
Baron Bunsen's work on Egypt, by which to test the 
amount of authority due to its negative criticisms. The 
fourth offers some remarks on the Human Aspect of 
Scripture, as essential to a just view of inspiration ; and 
the last enters at some length into the question of 
Geology, in connection with the Essays in the " Re- 
plies " and the " Aids to Faith." 

Kehhall, July 25, 1862. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction, pp. 1-7. 

Infidelity defined, 1 ; its changing forms, 2 ; covert infidelity, 3 ; its 
praise of the Bible, 4, 5 ; need of spiritual discernment, 6 ; questions 
to be answered, 6, 7. 

Chap. I. — The Nature of Divine Revelation, pp. 8-21. 

Truths implied — (1) the Being of God, 8, 9 ; (2) reality of creation, 9 ; 
(3) Divine Nature capable of being revealed, 10, 11 ; (4) man capable 
of Divine knowledge, 12 ; (5) the fallen condition of man, 13, 14: 
theory of the " Absolute Beligion," 15, 16 ; doctrine of the Fall, the 
key to supernatural revelation, 17, 18. 

Chap. II. — Man's Need op Divine Eevelation, pp. 22-28. 

Objection of the Theist, 22 ; the need proved by facts, 23, 24 ; due to 
man's corruption, 25 ; no disparagement of natural religion, 24 ; kinds 
of inspiration distinguished, 26, 27 ; a true revelation no burden, but 
a blessing, 27, 28. 

Chap. III. — The Supernatural Claims op Christianity, pp. 29-50. 

The main question — is Christianity human or Divine ? 29 ; first appeal 
to the Bible itself, 29, 30 ; midway position untenable in the presence 
of its claims, 30, 31 ; St. Matthew's Gospel, 32-34 ; St. Mark and 
St. Luke, 35 ; St. John's Gospel, 36-38 ; Book of Acts, 39-41 ; Apos- 
tolic Epistles, 42-49. Conclusion, a supernatural claim of the essence 
of Christianity, 50. 

Chap. IV. — The Reasonableness op Miracles, pp. 51-85. 

(Examination of Third Essay.) 

Appeal to miracles by Moses, 51 ; our Lord himself and the apostles, 
51, 52; recent objections, 52, 53. I. Charges against. Christian advo- 
cates, 53 ; reply, 54 ; an inquirer not a judge, 56 ; reasoning consistent 
with moral guilt of unbehef, 57 ; historical and moral evidence rightly 
mingled, 58-60 ; belief not a simple act of will, 61 ; right order of 



vi CONTENTS. 

honest inquiry, 62 ; moral preparation needed, 63. II. Objections to 
miracles stated, 63-65 ; Scripture view of their origin, 65 ; imply 
a false view of induction, 66, 67 ; false view of the constancy of 
natural law, 68, 69 ; false definition of miracles, 70 ; contradictions of 
the sceptical argument, 71. III. Objections to miracles as evidence, 
72, 73 ; definition of miracles, 74-76 ; their main use, 77 ; relation of 
external and internal evidence, 79-81 ; result of the inquiry, 82-85. 

Chap. V. — The Historical Truth of the New Testament, pp. 
86-114. 
Historical character of the Bible, 86, 87 ; assaults on the Gospels and 
Pentateuch, 88, 89 ; preliminary remarks, 90-94 ; the Book of Acts to 
the death of Herod, 95-98 ; to St. Paul's voyage, 99-103 ; internal har- 
mony, 104, 105 ; the four Gospels— times, 105-107; places and persons, 
109, 110; reconcilable diversity, 111-114. 

Chap. VI. — The Historical Truth of the Old Testament, pp. 
115-147. 
I. From the captivity to Christ — Limits in time, 115-117 ; absence of 
miracle, 118; chronological distinctness, 119, 120; fulness of detail, 
121 ; Book of Esther, 123. II. From Solomon to the Captivity. 
— Chronology, 124, 125 : heathen history, 126, 127 ; Kings and Chro- 
nicles, 128 ; prophetic books, 130. III. From the Conquest to Solo- 
mon. — General remarks, 132, 133 ; Book of Joshua, 134-140 ; Book of 
Judges, 140-143; its chronology, 143. IV. The Pentateuch, 145; 
results of induction, 146, 147. 

Chap. VII. — The Miracles of the Bible, pp. 148-162. 

Circular reasoning of modern sceptics, 148. I. Infrequency of miracles, 
149-152. II. Their publicity, 153, 154. III. Their consistent plan, 
155-161. IV. Their moral purpose, 161, 162. 

Chap. VIII. — The Prophecies of the Old Testament, pp. 163- 
198. 

(Bemarhs on the Second Essay.) 

Christianity, an appeal to miracles, 163 ; and to prophecy, 163 ; ex- 
amples in the Gospels, 164-169; their wide range, 170; recent objec- 
tions examined, 170-173 ; prophecy, Is. vii.-ix., 173-178 ; later pro- 
phecies of Isaiah, 178-187 ; Book of Daniel, its genuineness, 187-197 ; 
conclusion, 197, 198. 

Chap. IX. — Christianity and Written Eevelation, pp. 199-214. 
Keception of the Bible, a corollary of Christian faith, 199 ; general out- 
line of the argument, 200-203 ; stage of doubt, 204 ; faith in the 
Gospel, and in the inspiration of the Bible, distinct, though closely 
united, 205-207 ; inspiration, a positive idea ; 208, 209 ; entrance of 
written revelation, a great era ; 210 ; its uses and reasons, 211 ; its 
original perfection inferred, 213. 



CONTENTS. vii 

Chap. X. — The Inspiration of the Old Testament, pp. 215-235. 

Solemn introduction of written revelation, 215 ; testimonies of our Lord 
himself — (1) the temptation, 217 : (2) Galilean ministry, 217 ; (3) Ser- 
mon on the Mount, 218 ; (4) charge to the leper ; (5) testimony to 
the Baptist 221 ; (6) Matt. xii. 3-7, 222 ; (7) teaching in parahles, 
223 ; (8) tradition, Matt. xv. 1-9, 223 ; (9) the transfiguration, 223 ; 
(10) divorce, 224 ; (11) entrance to Jerusalem, 225 ; (12) answers 
to Sadducees, 226 ; (13) Matt, xxiii. 227 ; (14) the passion, 228 ; (15, 
16) St. Luke's Gospel, 230-233 ; later books, 233 ; general conclusion, 
234. 

Chap. XI. — The Inspiration of the New Testament, pp. 236-257. 

Evidence less direct, 236. I. Analogy of the Old Testament, 237. 
II. Special nature of the new dispensation, 238. III. Resemblance 
in structure of New and Old Testaments, 240. IV. Promises to the 
apostles, 241. V. Their rank compared with the prophets, 243. 

VI. Testimonials in St. Paul's Epistles to their own inspiration, 245. 

VII. and to the Gospels and Acts, 248. VIII. Epistles of St. Peter 
and St. Jude, 251. IX. Writings of St. John, 254. Conclusion, 256. 

Chap. XII. — The Interpretation of Scripture, pp. 258-279. 
(BemarJcs on the Seventh Essay.) 

Amount of Biblical literature, 258 ; temptation thus occasioned, 259 ; 
recoil from the maxim of Vincentius, 260 ; counter maxim of the 
Seventh Essay delusive, 261 ; Bible to be studied naturally, 262 ; its 
inspiration not mechanical, 263 ; reverently, as the voice of the Spirit, 
265 ; confusion of the negative criticism, 269 ; contrast in two 
examples, 271 ; value of human helps, 274 ; real certainty of Bible 
theology, 275. 

Chap. XIII. — On Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, pp. 280- 
306. 

Theory of partial inspiration, 281 ; its difficulties, 282 ; divergence not 
contradiction, 283 ; variety one element of the true definition, Heb. i. 
1, 283 ; Scriptures, a condensed record, 284; silence, no proof of igno- 
rance, 285 ; inferences not assertions, 287. I. Discrepancies alleged 
in the Essays, 289-293. II. Prolegomena to the New Testament, 
294-306. 

Chap. XIV. — The Bible and Modern Science, pp. 307-335. 
(Examination of the Fifth Essay.) 

Question stated, 307 ; its true limits, 308 ; astronomical objection, 309 ; 

based on three errors, 311-314; geological difficulties, 315; optical 

'representation, 317-321 ; break in Gen. i. 2, 322-329 ; events of fourth 

day, 330 ; the firmament, 331 ; true relation of Genesis and geology, 

334. 



viii CONTENTS. 

Chap. XV. — The same continued, pp. 336-350. 

All the Bible of Divine authority, 336-339 ; contains materials of 
sciences, not sciences themselves, 340-350. 

Chap. XVI. — The Bible and Natural Conscience, pp. 351-372. 

(Remarlcs on the First Essay.) 

Question stated, 351-353 ; direct authority of Scripture, 353 ; con- 
science not absolute or supreme, 359 ; its true nature, 361 ; no 
mediator, 362 ; needs to be corrected and purified by the word of 
God, 363 ; the Gospel, an external authority, 366. 

Chap. XVII. — The Historical Unity of the Bible, pp. 373-404. 

Chap. XVIII. — The Doctrinal Unity of the Bible, pp. 405-426. 

Chap. XIX. — Christianity a Progressive Scheme, pp. 427-441. 



APPENDIX. 

Note A. — The Evidential School of Theology, pp. 443-452. 
Note B. — The Limits of Keligious Thought, pp. 452-456. 
Note C. — The Bible and Ancient Egypt, pp. 457-475. 
Note D. — The Human Element in Scripture, pp. 475-485. 
Note E. — Genesis and Geology, pp. 485-520. 



THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Chkistianity claims to be a Divine revelation, or a 
message of truth from the living God to the children of 
men, contained, embodied, and recorded in the Scrip- 
tures of the New Testament. It claims, further, to be 
the sequel and completion of earlier messages from the 
same Divine Author, contained and recorded, in like 
manner, in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. 
Christian faith, in the widest sense of the term, consists 
in the admission of this double claim. Infidelity con- 
sists in its rejection and denial. 

This denial may assume very different forms. It 
may be coarse, arrogant, and abusive, or polite, modest, 
and refined in its tone. It may load the Bible with 
reproach, as a gross imposture ; or admire its poetical 
beauty, extol its pure morality, and treat it with the 
reverence of the scholar and the antiquarian, as con- 
taining some of the choicest products of human intelli- 
gence. While one type of infidelity repels and disgusts 
by its open blasphemy, another allures and fascinates 
ingenuous minds by an air of caution and candour, and 
puts on the garb of philosophical research, moral 
sensibility, and religious reverence. But these, after 
all, may be only varieties of the same unbelief. The 

B 



2 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

question between the Christian and the infidel does not 
turn upon the degree of merit or demerit assigned to 
the Scriptures, viewed as merely human compositions. 
It depends on the admission or rejection of their Divine 
authority. Is Christianity a supernatural message from 
the living and true God, or a mere product of the 
natural powers of the human mind ? Is the Bible the 
voice of God, or only the voice of some Hebrew histo- 
rians, poets, and moralists — the word of God, or the 
word of man ? 

The form of infidelity which prevailed at the close of 
the last century was daring, open, and blasphemous. It 
was bred amidst the rottenness of a corrupted church 
and a dissolute society ; and ascribing to Christianity 
all the worst abuses of both, it kept no terms with " the 
wretch" it laboured to destroy. The experience of 
seventy years has wrought a great change in the tactics 
of this moral warfare. The hopes of an ungodly and 
blaspheming philosophy were quenched speedily, under 
the reign of terror, in a sea of blood. The liberty, 
equality, and philanthropy, which had trodden the 
Bible under foot, were replaced, in a few years, by the 
heaviest yoke of military despotism. At the same 
time Christian faith received a fresh impulse, and 
began to win new trophies, by the revival of missionary 
zeal, the increased circulation of the word of God, and 
the spread of the gospel, through the self-denying 
labours of faithful men, in almost every part of the 
heathen world. 

In consequence of these changes, the spirit of un- 
belief has revealed itself, of late years, in features less 
repulsive but more insidious. It rejects the Divine 
authority of the Bible, but is willing to extol its poetical 
beauty, and to recognise in it a high degree of historical 
value and antiquarian interest. It acquits the Sacred 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

Writers of wilful imposture, and even gives them praise 
for high religious feeling, for deep thought, and lofty 
imagination, though it refuses to own that they are 
the messengers of God. Its motto is no longer that of 
the unbelieving Pharaoh — " Who is the Lord, that I 
should obey his voice ?" It resembles more nearly the 
" Hail, Master " of the false apostle, or the attempt of 
the spirit of divination to enter into partnership with 
the truth, when it cried — " These men are the servants 
of the Most High God, which shew unto us the way 
of salvation." 

This varied and more subtle form of assault on the 
authority of the gospel requires increased discernment 
and watchfulness on the part of all the true disciples of 
Christ. Open blasphemies are more easily repelled. 
They revolt us by their gross impiety, put the con- 
science at once on its guard, and may often produce a 
powerful reaction in favour of the truth which they 
assail. But the sapping and mining process of a covert 
infidelity, which borrows the very phrases of the gospel, 
to give them a philosophical meaning, and will own 
almost every kind of excellency in the Scriptures, except 
the authority of a Divine message, is far more perilous 
and seductive to thoughtful and serious minds. The 
chasm which separates faith from unbelief, submission 
to God from the rejection of his authority, is bridged 
over by a thin layer of ambiguous phrases, and thickly 
strewn with flowers of fancy, and a sentimental piety, 
till it disappears from view ; and those who are thorough 
unbelievers at heart mistake themselves for the genuine 
disciples of a pure and enlightened Christianity. 

Let us contrast, for example, the ribaldry of Paine 
and Yoltaire with the following eulogy on the Bible by 
a modern ringleader in the attempt to replace Christian 
faith by deism or natural religion. It will be evident at 

b 2 



4 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

once how*total a change has occurred in the weapons of 
assault ; and what discernment and caution are required 
in the friends of truth, that they may not be deceived 
by smooth and complimentary phrases, while the 
foundations of their faith are silently, but vigorously 
and daringly assailed. 

" This collection of books," Mr. Parker writes, " has 
taken such hold of the world as no other. The literature 
of Greece which goes up like incense from that land of 
temples and heroic deeds, has not half the influence of 
this book from a nation despised alike in ancient and 
modern times. It is read in all the ten thousand pulpits 
of our land. In all the temples of Christendom is its 
voice lifted up week by week. The sun never sets on 
its glowing page. It goes equally to the cottage of the 
plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into 
the literature of the scholar, and colours the talk of the 
street. It enters men's closets, mingles in all the grief 
and cheerfulness of life. The Bible attends men in 
sickness, when the fever of the world is on them. The 
aching head finds a softer pillow, when the Bible lies 
underneath. The mariner, escaping from shipwreck, 
seizes it the first of his treasures, and keeps it sacred to 
God. It blesses us when we are born, gives names to 
half Christendom, rejoices with us, has sympathy for 
our mourning, tempers our grief to finer issues. It is 
the better part of our sermons. It lifts man above 
himself. Our best of uttered prayers are in its storied 
speech, wherewith our fathers and the patriarchs prayed. 
The timid man, about to awake from his dream of life, 
looks through the glass of Scripture, and his eye grows 
bright ; he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the 
way unknown and distant, to take the death angel by 
the hand, and bid farewell to wife and babes and home. 
Men rest on this* their dearest hopes. It tells them of 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

God and of his blessed Son, of earthly duties and 
heavenly rest. Foolish men find in it the source of 
Plato's wisdom, of the science of Newton, and the art 
of Raphael. 

" Now for such effects there must be an adequate 
cause. It is no light thing to hold, with an electric 
chain, a thousand hearts, though but an hour, beating 
and bounding with such fiery speed : what is it then, 
to hold the Christian world, and that for centuries? 
Are men fed with chaff and husks ? The authors we 
reckon great, whose articulate breath now sways the 
nation's mind, will soon pass away, giving place to 
other great men of a season, who in their turn shall 
follow them to eminence, and then to oblivion. Some 
thousand famous writers come up in this century, to be 
forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible 
is not loosed, nor its golden bowl broken, as Time 
chronicles his tens of centuries passed by. Fire acts as 
a refiner of metals : the dross is piled in forgotten heaps, 
but the pure gold is reserved for use, and is current 
a thousand years hence as well as to-day. It is only 
real merit that can long pass for such ; tinsel will rust 
in the storms of life; false weights are soon detected 
there. It is only a heart can speak to a heart, a mind 
to a mind, a soul to a soul, wisdom to the wise, and 
religion to the pious. There must then be in the Bible, 
mind, heart, and soul, wisdom, and religion : were it 
otherwise, how could millions find it their lawgiver, 
friend, and prophet? Some of the greatest of human 
institutions seem built on the Bible : such things will 
not stand on chaff, but on mountains of rock. What is 
the secret cause of this wide and deep influence ? It 
must be found in the Bible itself, and must be adequate 
to the effect." 1 

1 Parker's ' Discourse of Religion,' pp. 237-239, 242. 



6 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Such a school of infidelity, which assumes the garb, 
and borrows the phrases of Christianity, requires us to 
look below the surface, before we can discern its real 
nature, and guard against the inroads of its subtle 
delusions. All these praises of the Bible, in the writer 
just quoted, and others of the same type of thought, are 
followed by a distinct and deliberate rejection of its 
Divine authority. " The conclusion," we are told, " is 
forced upon us that the Bible is a human work, as much 
as the ' Principia' of Newton or Descartes. Some 
things are beautiful and true, but others no man in his 
senses can accept. Here are the works of various 
writers, thrown capriciously together, and united by no 
common tie but the lids of the bookbinder — two forms 
of religion which differ widely, one the religion of fear, 
and the other of love." 

The same spirit evidently pervades other writings, 
which profess to set Christianity free from the trammels 
of a traditional orthodoxy, and to bring it into harmony 
with the discoveries of modern science. It is essential, 
then, to look beneath the surface of the inquiry, and 
to examine the foundations themselves. A course of 
argument, like that of Paley, 1 may be triumphant and 
complete against a direct charge of imposture, dis- 
honesty, and collusion. But the form of temptation 
which now assails the Church requires some previous 
questions, more subtle and delicate in their nature, to 
be examined. What do we mean by a Divine Revela- 
tion ? What are the conditions on which its possibility, 
its probability, or its certainty depend ? What need is 
there that such a revelation should be given to man- 
kind? How far can miracles, prophecies, or moral 
excellence, separately or in combination, furnish decisive 
evidence of its reality ? How may we infer the Divine 

1 Note A. The Evidential School of Theology. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

authority of the Bible from the statement of the Bible 
itself, without a vicious circle in our reasoning ? How 
are we to explain alleged contradictions between the 
language of Scripture and the results of antiquarian 
research, and the real or supposed discoveries of modern 
science ? How can we reconcile the doctrine of Divine 
inspiration, and the claim of the Bible to a supernatural 
origin, with the innumerable signs of human authorship, 
with seeming discrepancies in its historical statements, 
and the diversity of manner and style in its different 
writers ? Such questions as these require to be carefully 
examined, if a bulwark is to be reared against the 
tidewave of sceptical thought, which threatens, at this 
moment, to bury the old landmarks of Christian faith. 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NATURE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 

What do we mean by a Divine Eevelation ? What are 
the conditions on which the possibility of its occurrence 
depends ? These are among the first questions which 
must be answered, that our acceptance of Christianity, 
under the character of a message from God, may be a 
well grounded and reasonable faith. 

The first truth, plainly implied, is the being- of God, 
as a personal and conscious Intelligence. " He that 
cometh to God must believe that he is." Atheism, by 
its very nature, excludes all possibility of revelation. 
If there be no God, there can be no communication 
from God to man. A blind, mechanical, unconscious 
Fate, can never be the source of intelligible messages to 
intelhgent beings. All faith in divine revelation must 
imply a previous conviction that " there is a God in 
heaven who revealeth secrets," an Unseen Lawgiver, 
who is capable of making known his will to mankind. 

That faith in God, however, which must precede our 
belief in a divine message, may be exceedingly dim, 
vague, and imperfect. It need not be more than a strong 
inpression that there is some Unseen Intelligence, 
higher, greater, and wiser than men. The true character 
of this Unknown Being may remain concealed in thick 
darkness, until it is learned from his own messages. 
Atheism makes the acceptance of a divine revelation a 



THE NATUKE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 9 

contradiction and an impossibility. A full and adequate 
knowledge of God, apart from such a revelation, and 
before it is received, would degrade it into a useless and 
unmeaning superfluity. 

A second truth, equally implied in the fact of reve- 
lation, is THE REALITY OF CREATED EXISTENCE. Those 

who receive a divine message must be distinct from Him 
who sends it. It may seem needless, at first sight, to 
dwell even for a moment on a truth so clear and self- 
evident. Philosophers, however, both in ancient and 
modern times, have often stumbled at the very threshold 
of true science, and have mistaken a denial of the 
earliest lessons of self-consciousness for superiority to 
vulgar prejudice, and a proof of their own more pro- 
found wisdom. The Maya, or illusion of the Brahman, 
the absorption of Buddhism, the theories of Spinoza, 
the sceptical philosophy of Hume, and some later 
forms of German speculation, agree in denying the 
distinct reality of created existence. "Whenever the 
Scriptural idea of creation is replaced by one of emana- 
tion or development, such a result seems naturally to 
follow. Pantheism in all its forms, no less than mere 
Atheism, excludes revelation and makes it impossible. 
If the souls of men are only parts of the Infinite Soul 
of the universe, there may be strange pulsations of life 
in this complex universe of being ; but revelation, or 
the conveyance of truth from a Creator to his own crea- 
tures, becomes a logical contradiction. We must believe 
that we are, as well as that God is, before we can 
believe that God has made to his erring and sinful 
creatures, a true revelation of his own will. 

A Divine Message, like a mediator, is " not of one." 
It requires evidently two distinct parties, a giver and a 
receiver. The existence of the rational creature must 
be real, or there can be no manifestation of the Creator. 



10 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

This fundamental truth of our consciousness, without 
which all revelation would be impossible, is confirmed 
and ratified by the very first utterance of revealed re- 
ligion, when it tells us that " in the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth," and that Man 
himself was formed " in the image of God." 

A third truth, also implied in the acceptance of a 
divine revelation, is the power of God to make known 
His nature and will to his own creatures. His 
absolute dominion and infinite greatness do not make it 
impossible for him to reveal himself to men. The con- 
ception would, indeed, be strange, of a Being condemned 
by his own perfection to an eternal solitude ; able to 
give life and reason to finite and intelligent creatures ; 
but unable, because he is infinite, to bridge over the 
immense chasm which separates him from his own 
works, or to make known to those creatures his mind 
and will. On the contrary, one of those perfections 
which reason plainly requires us to ascribe to him is 
the capability of revealing himself to all the rational 
creatures he has made. We may here apply the de- 
cisive reasoning of the Psalmist : " He that planted the 
ear, shall he not hear ; he that formed the eye, shall 
he not see ? " The argument, when carried a step 
further, is equally cogent. He that fashioned the 
tongue, shall he not be able to make his voice heard 
in clearest accents, and to communicate his mind and 
will to the children of men ? 

It is quite possible, in recoiling from the proud 
claims of natural reason, while it pretends to form 
a priori systems of the universe, to fall into error no 
less dangerous on the opposite side. The finite cannot 
comprehend the infinite. Hence the inference may be 
drawn, that the nature of God must remain for ever 
inaccessible and wholly unknown. But this would be 



THE NATURE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 11 

an illusion, contradicted by every analogy in every field 
of science. In all subjects, from the lowest to the 
highest, partial, but real knowledge, is the essential 
condition of a created and finite intelligence. Created 
existence is a middle term between nonentity and ab- 
solute being. The knowledge of rational creatures, in 
like manner, is a middle term between pure nescience 
and perfect omniscience. That a real, genuine, though 
of course an imperfect knowledge of God, is attainable, 
and ought to be attained, is one of the fundamental doc- 
trines both of natural and revealed religion. It ranks 
side by side with the doctrine of creation, that is, faith 
in the reality of our own existence, as the rational and 
intelligent creatures of God. 

In every subject of thought, knowledge may be real 
without being exhaustive or complete. The landscape 
may be spread beneath our eye in clear outline, though 
parts near the horizon are seen dimly, and all that lies 
beyond that horizon is wholly hidden from our view. 
The knowledge that two and two are four is within 
the reach of a child. It is a definite truth, contrasted 
with a falsehood, in excess and defect, on either side : 
but to comprehend all the properties and relations of 
any one number — even two, the simplest of them all — 
would require omniscience. There is no room for a 
contrast, in this respect, between the knowledge of God 
and any other kind of knowledge whatever. The 
maxim, " we know in part," applies impartially to 
every field of natural, moral, and theological science. 
The degrees of our knowledge or ignorance may differ 
widely. Fallen man knows much of nature, little of 
himself, and least of his Maker. But even where his 
knowledge is greatest, far more than he has learned 
remains still unknown ; and even where his ignorance 
is deepest, some traces remain, though in broken 



12 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

characters, of " the work of the law written in the 
heart." 1 

Such is the third truth, implied in the idea of a 
revelation, that the will and character, the ways and 
purposes of God, are capable of being made known to 
his intelligent creatures. But when we speak of a 
revelation to mankind, a further doctrine is implied; 
that Man, in his actual state, has a capacity for 

LEARNING AND KNOWING THE TRUTH OF GOD. 

If we had no faculty of reason distinguishing us from 
the brutes, it would be unmeaning to address to us any 
message that requires the exercise of intelligence. 
There must be powers and capacities receptive of divine 
truth, or else revelation would be impossible, and the 
claim of Christianity to be a message from God to 
mankind would be convicted of absurdity. It could 
no longer have any reasonable foundation on which 
to rest. 

This truth, however plain, has been often obscured, 
and perhaps sometimes even denied, by over-zealous 
advocates of Christian orthodoxy. The strong state- 
ments of Scripture respecting the moral disease and 
inability of man may be so combined and isolated, as to 
engender a dull, passive fatalism, and turn into an idle 
mockery that earnest appeal to the human conscience, 
which runs throughout the whole course of the word 
of God. The heart of sinners, we are told, is gross, 
their ears are heavy, their eyes are blind. They are 
" dead in trespasses and sins." Such passages, taken 
alone, might appear to teach a natural incapacity for 
discerning any moral and religious truth, rather than 
deep moral aversion from the messages of God. But 
other statements, equally strong and clear, restore the 
balance of truth. There is a frequent appeal to the 

1 Note B. The Limits of Eclkious Thought. 



THE NATUEE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 13 

conscience of the sinner himself on the equity of the 
Divine commands. "Come now, and let us reason 
together, saith the Lord." " And now, inhabitants 
of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, 
betwixt me and my vineyard." " my people, wherein 
have I wearied thee ? testify against me." " Yea, and 
why even of your own selves judge ye not what is 
right ?" The corruption of the sinful heart of man, 
and its averseness from the messages of God, is vividly 
portrayed in striking metaphors ; but the presence of a 
natural capacity to discern the authority of those mes- 
sages and to recognise their equity, is also stated in the 
most emphatic and decisive terms. 

These four main truths — the being of God, the reality 
of created existence, the com m unicableness of Divine 
knowledge, and the capacity of men for apprehending 
spiritual truth, are fundamental conditions and pre- 
requisites of all faith in revealed religion. They sepa- 
rate the Christian believer, at the outset, from the 
Atheist, the Pantheist or philosophical Buddhist, the 
sceptical Idealist of the transcendental school, and the 
sceptical Materialist of the Positive Philosophy. One 
further truth, however, is required, which distinguishes 
Christian faith from the most subtle and specious variety 
of unbelief, the doctrine of Spiritual Theism, with its 
admission of a constant, universal, unintermitted reve- 
lation of the will of God to the whole race of mankind. 
This further truth, on which the doctrine of super- 
natural revelation, when viewed practically, will be 
found to rest, is the fallen condition of man, which 
requires special interpositions of Divine love and wis- 
dom in order to effect his recovery. 

Let us conceive a world of perfect moral purity, 
where no cloud of sin has ever dimmed the light of the 
Divine presence, or concealed the Holy One from the 



14 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

view of his own creatures. There might still, no 
doubt, be precepts and commands of the Creator, the 
reason of which was not explained, and which might 
retain the character of outward messages, communi- 
cated directly by the Word and the Spirit of God 
to sinless beings, willing subjects of the Divine au- 
thority. But where all was light, the only contrast 
would consist in various degrees of the same heavenly 
brightness. The heavens would declare the glory of 
their Maker, and the firmament would shew his handy 
work. Every breath, every pulse of life, in ..every 
creature, would be referred instinctively to its Divine 
Author. His presence would be felt, and his praise 
would be sung, in the wonderful workmanship of the 
human frame, and in every exercise of the higher 
faculties of ^the soul within. All nature would be 
redolent of worship ; all creatures would reflect, like 
unsullied mirrors, some ray of the Divine goodness. 
Life, in all its forms and in all its activities, would be 
one series of ceaseless revelations of the bounty and 
wisdom of the Creator. The world itself would be 
bathed in the light of the Divine presence. Revela- 
tions, ever new, and endlessly varied, would be im- 
parted to the souls of men, by every sunrise, and every 
sunset, by the song of the birds, and the fragrance of the 
flowers, by the joys of childhood, and the ripened wis- 
dom of age, by all the beauties of the earth, and all the 
glories of the sky. There might still be, from time to 
time, special manifestations of God's gracious presence, 
and more signal communications of his truth and love, 
by the visits of angels, or direct appearances of the Son 
of God. But where all was light and love, the sense 
of contrast between these special revelations and 
the ordinary course of Providence, since this itself 
would be a continual and conscious revelation of God's 



THE NATURE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 15 

presence and love, wonld almost disappear. A crystal 
palace, whose transparent walls admit the full day- 
light on every side, may receive a richer splendour 
when the sun breaks forth from a cloud, and lights it 
up with noonday brilliance ; but there was no dark- 
ness before, and that fuller light, however pleasant and 
joyful it may be, scarcely receives the name of a revela- 
tion. But let one such ray of sunlight, through some 
narrow crevice, visit the low dungeon whose massive 
walls exclude the least beam of day, whose narrow 
window, choked with dust, can do no more than make 
darkness visible, and where some unhappy prisoner 
is pining in hopeless gloom, and then it is a revela- 
tion indeed. The light becomes more conspicuous and 
more joyful by the sudden contrast with the previous 
darkness. 

Pure Theism or Spiritualism is the most subtle and 
plausible rival of Christian faith. It approaches nearest 
to it, adopts its phrases, borrows its morality, and 
nestles, as it were, close to its side. It rejects the open 
blasphemies of atheism, and the misty dreams of a pan- 
theistic philosophy. It allows, and even asserts, that 
Grod is able to make himself known to his creatures, 
and that Man has faculties capable of receiving Divine 
communications. So far the spiritualist, the disciple of 
" Absolute Religion," and the Christian believer, travel 
side by side ; but here their paths diverge from each 
other. Christianity affirms the doctrine of the Fall, or 
a moral degeneracy and corruption of all mankind, 
which makes a supernatural provision of mercy desir- 
able, and even essential, for their recovery. The 
spiritualist sets the doctrine aside, as degrading to 
human nature, a mere dream of melancholy super- 
stition. On this rejection he builds his own theory of 
revelation ; and the following extract from the eloquent 



16 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

writer already quoted will shew its total contrariety to 
the lessons of Christian faith : — 

" We have direct access to God through reason, con- 
science, the religious sentiment, just as we have direct 
.access to nature through the eye, the ear, or the hand. 
Through these channels, and by means of a law, certain, 
regular, and universal as gravitation, God inspires man, 
makes revelation of truth. This inspiration is no 
miracle, but a regular mode of God's action on con- 
scious spirit, as gravitation on unconscious matter. It 
is not a rare condescension of God, but a universal up- 
lifting of man. To obtain a knowledge of duty, man 
is not sent away, outside of himself, to ancient docu- 
ments, for the only rule of life and practice ; the word 
is very nigh him, even in his heart ; and by this word 
he is to try all documents whatever. Inspiration, like 
God's omnipresence, is not limited to the few writers 
claimed by the Jews, Christians, or Mohammedans, but 
is co-extensive with the race. 

" This theory does not make God limited, partial, 
or capricious. It exalts man. While it honours the 
excellence of a religious genius, of a Moses or a Jesus, 
it does not pronounce their character monstrous, as 
the supernatural theory, but natural, human, beautiful, 
revealing the possibility of mankind. Prayer is not a 
soliloquy, not an address to a deceased man, but a sally 
into the spiritual world, whence we bring back light 
and truth. There are windows towards God as towards 
the world. There is no intercessor or mediator be- 
tween man and God ; for man can speak, and God 
can hear, each for himself. He requires no advocate 
to plead for men, who need not pray by attorney. 
Each soul stands close to the omnipresent God, may 
feel his beautiful presence, and have familiar access to 
him, get truth at first hand from its author. Is inspi- 



THE NATURE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 17 

ration confined to theological matters alone ? Is 
Newton less inspired than Simon Peter ? . . . . Plato 
and Newton, Milton and Isaiah, Leibnitz and Paul, 
Mozart, Eaphael, Phidias, Praxiteles, and Orpheus, 
receive into their various forms the one spirit from Grod 
most high." 1 

This theory of inspiration, it must be plain, is based 
on a silent assumption of the unfallen and sinless con- 
dition of mankind. Christianity, m its claim to be a 
supernatural revelation, special and distinctive in its 
messengers and messages, though world-wide in its 
aim, starts from an opposite assumption, that man- 
kind have fallen from original uprightness, and that 
means more powerful than the voice of nature alone are 
needed for their recovery. 

The doctrine of the Fall, once received, explains all 
the special features of supernatural revelation. Nature, 
in all her works, in the rain from heaven, and fruitful 
seasons, may still bear witness to the bounty of her 
Maker. The heavens may still declare the glory of 
God, and the firmament may shew his handiwork. But 
sin has made the eyes of men dim, and their ears deaf, 
that they seldom heed the message ; and it has rendered 
deeper revelations of God's character, than mere bounty 
and general benevolence, essential to man's recovery 
from a state of guilt, alienation, and moral ruin. It 
fills the conscience with terrors, and the understanding 
with strong and strange delusions. It turns men into 
tempters and deceivers, each to the other, instead of 
multiplying mirrors, reflecting brightly upon each 
other the beams of the Divine goodness. Its universal 
tendency, and in dark times its actual result, is to 
pervert human society into a gigantic system of moral 
falsehood, in which men are " foolish, disobedient, de- 

1 Parker's ' Discourse,' pp. 160-165. 

C 



18 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

ceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in 
malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." Tit. 
iii. 3. The light from God's natural works still shines 
upon this land of mist and darkness ; but " the darkness 
comprehendeth it not." It is too feeble to penetrate 
the thick gloom. Every field of nature is either 
peopled with phantom gods, the mere reflections of 
human lust and appetite ; or second causes alone are 
seen, and the great "First Cause is thrust out of sight 
and forgotten. It becomes needful, then, by signs and 
wonders, to break through the monotony of nature, and 
to force on reluctant hearts the conviction that there is a 
living God, the Lord of nature, higher and nobler than 
the laws he has ordained for his creatures, the true 
Sovereign of the universe. Since men have become 
mutual deceivers, unable to discern even the simpler 
lessons of natural religion, and still more to anticipate 
the mysteries of redemption, and to devise, or even to 
understand, the means required for their own recovery, 
special messengers of truth must be provided, if the 
work of mercy is to be carried on. The Word of God, 
whether before his incarnation, or incarnate in human 
flesh, may thus have to become the Messenger to sinners 
of his Father's will. Angels, whose vision of God has 
been dimmed by no fall, though their intercourse with 
a fallen race is almost wholly suspended, may still 
be sent from time to time on errands of mercy or 
of judgment, at the bidding of their Lord. Holy 
men, the choice first-fruits of redemption, in whom the 
work of moral recovery is more advanced than in 
their fellows, may be raised, from time to time, above 
themselves, and shielded from the influence of remain- 
ing infirmity and error, in order to become the vehicles 
of Divine messages to their fellow-men. And thus by 
prophets, by angels, and the Son of God himself, 



THE NATURE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 19 

attested by miracles and by prophecies, a system of 
Divine revelation may be carried on, which meets the 
necessities of a fallen race, speaks to mankind in louder 
and clearer tones, and with wider and deeper truths, 
than a mere religion of nature can attain ; secures at 
every step of its progress some partial victories of truth 
and righteousness over sin, error, and delusion ; and 
moves on, with firm and measured step, toward a long- 
promised consummation of restored holiness, when the 
tabernacle of God shall be with men, and his will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven. 

To decide, then, between the high-sounding dreams 
of Spiritualism, with its pretensions to universal inspi- 
ration, and the modest claims of Christianity, with its 
specialties of miracle, prophecy, and sacrifice, we need 
only to read the history of the world, and its long ages of 
sin and sorrow. The voice of nature might well suffice 
for an unfallen race ; or if it were supplemented by 
special messages from heaven, these angels' visits need 
not be " few and far between," and would lose their 
strange and miraculous character amidst the unclouded 
sunshine of a sinless world. But when mankind have 
turned their backs on the light, and plunged them- 
selves into thick darkness; when habits of sin have 
blunted the conscience, and tainted and defiled every 
faculty of the soul; when the laws of a holy God 
have been broken, and denounce a curse against the 
rebels who have trampled them under their feet ; when 
the pall of death broods over the whole race, and the 
daily spectacle of its ravages, with no return from the 
grave, has almost blotted out all faith in the soul's 
immortality ; when life is short, and death is near, and 
judgment at hand, and conscience accuses, and the law 
of God condemns, and dark clouds of fear and remorse 
have separated the souls of men from their God — it 

c 2 



20 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

needs a clearer and stronger voice than that of nature 
alone, to restore peace to the troubled heart, to subdue 
the inveterate power of sin, and open the pathway of 
life to the trembling sinner. For Nature herself has 
solemn messages, and can terrify the guilty with the 
fear of judgment to come, no less than delight the 
children of innocence with her tones of gentleness and 
peace. Clouds and thick darkness, the volcano and the 
earthquake, the lightning, the whirlwind, and the hurri- 
cane, the spreading fever, and the destroying pestilence, 
all have their own voice of fear and alarm to the guilty 
conscience. They echo in loud accents the warning 
of the Bible itself, that " the wrath of God is revealed 
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
ness of men." 

Christianity, then, in claiming to be a special and 
supernatural revelation, implies and presupposes the 
great doctrine of the fall of mankind. Whenever this 
truth is denied, the need for any such special interference 
of God, to make known his ways, will cease to be recog- 
nised, and the sufficiency of the mere light of nature 
will be maintained. The specialties of revealed religion 
will then be held for so many proofs of its arbitrary 
and capricious character, so as to make it unworthy 
a God of universal benevolence. The whole provision 
of supernatural evidence, in miracles and prophecies, 
will seem a laborious superfluity ; and then, by natural 
consequence, an incredible deviation from the fixed and 
usual laws of Divine Providence. When a whole 
neighbourhood are enjoying perfect health, the arrange- 
ments of a hospital, with its nurses and physicians, its 
wards and couches, its medicines and surgical instru- 
ments, however complete or skilfully devised, may seem 
to be only a complicated and laborious folly. " They that 
be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." 



THE NATURE OF DIVINE REVELATION. 21 

An unfallen and sinless race would have little need for 
a long series of miraculous messages and supernatural 
revelations. 

Once admit, however, the truth that man is fallen 
and apostate, and needs rescuing from moral degrada- 
tion and spiritual danger, and the seeming anomaly 
disappears. Christianity, with its miracles and pro- 
phecies, and mysterious doctrines, is no longer an 
inexplicable paradox, a strange, incredible excrescence 
on a simpler creed of pure theism and universal phi- 
lanthropy — a creed reckoned complete and effective, 
without this higher aid, to meet every want of the souls 
of men. On the contrary, the truth of its own descrip- 
tions of its blessed office commends itself at once to the 
burdened conscience and the sorrowing heart. The 
salvation it brings to sinners is " the power of God, and 
the wisdom of God ; and the Saviour in whom it centres 
is " the Day spring from on high," sent on a visit of 
mercy to a race of wandering prodigals, " to give light 
to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, 
and to guide our feet into the way of peace," 



22 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER II. 

man's need op divine revelation. 

" I deem it unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in 
need of a revelation, because I have met with no serious 
person who thinks that, even under the Christian reve- 
lation, we have too much light, or any degree of assur- 
ance that is superfluous." 

The objection, which Paley has thus pithily dismissed 
in his opening sentence, has been revived by some late 
writers in a more paradoxical form. A supernatural 
revelation, they affirm gravely, instead of a help, would 
be only a hindrance to the souls of men. It would 
charge the scheme of Providence with an inexcusable 
defect. Its admission disparages and sets aside natural 
religion, and denies the ceaseless activity of the Divine 
goodness. It would lay a heavy yoke upon the reason 
and conscience, and subject them to a degrading and 
oppressive tyranny. The charge has been made in 
these words. 

" This theory makes inspiration a very rare miracle, 
confined to one nation, and to some score of men in that 
nation, who stand between us and God. We cannot 
pray in our own name, but in that of the Mediator, 
who makes intercession for us. It exalts miraculous 
persons, and degrades men. Our duty is not to inquire 
into the truth of their word; reason is no judge of 
that : we must put faith in all which all of them tell 



MAN'S NEED OF DIVINE REVELATION. 23 

us. It sacrifices reason, conscience, and love to the 
words of the miraculous men; and thus makes its 
mediator a tyrant who rules over the soul by external 
authority, not a brother who acts in the soul by awaken- 
ing its dormant powers. It says the canon of revelation 
is closed ; Grod will no longer act on man as heretofore. 
We have come at the end of the feast, are born in the 
latter days and dotage of mankind, and can only get 
light by raking among the ashes of the past. The 
religion of supernaturalism is worn out and second- 
handed. Its vice is to restrict the Divine presence and 
action to towns, places, and persons. It overlooks the 
fact, that if religious truth be necessary for all, then it 
must either have been provided and put within the 
reach of all, or else there is a fault in the Divine plan. 
If the two main points (a knowledge of the existence of 
God, and of the duty we owe to him) be within the 
reach of man's natural powers, how is a miracle, or the 
tradition of a miracle, needed to reveal the minor doc- 
trines involved in the universal truth ? Where, then, is 
the use of miraculous interposition?" 1 

I. The first objection is here made to lie against the 
notion itself, that a supernatural revelation could be 
needful, or even desirable, for mankind. It would 
imply, it is said, a serious fault in the plan of Pro- 
vidence. That scheme must be perfect ; and could not 
be perfect if men stood in need of any supernatural light. 
No matter what the historical evidence may be, that 
men, without this aid, have groped for ages in thick 
darkness, the whole must give way, in the view of such 
confident theorists, to this one aphorism of & priori 
reasoning, and is refuted by their own conception of 
what a perfect scheme of Providence inevitably requires. 

The simplest reply, then, to this first objection, is an 

1 ' Discourse of Religion,' pp. 156, 158. 



24 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

appeal from dreams to facts, from the fancies of rash 
and ignorant speculation to the stern realities of the 
world's history. Whatever the means of natural light 
which, in the view of such theorists, must have been 
provided, the great bulk of mankind have been steeped, 
for long ages, in gross religious darkness. The same 
writers who assure us that a miraculous revelation is 
needless, or else the Divine plan would be imperfect, 
map out the religious history of the Past into three 
stages, which they describe as follows. The first is 
Fetichism, in which " the saint is a murderer, and the 
fancied God presides over the butchery." The second 
is Polytheism, in which " the gods were to be had at 
a bargain ;" and the priesthood " separated morality 
from religion, life from belief, good sense from theology," 
and the story is " a tragedy of Sin and Woe." The 
third and latest is a corrupt Monotheism, whose disciples 
" make earth a demon-land, and the one 'God a king of 
devils." Men have groped, it seems, in such blindness 
for thousands of years ; but they must be held, on a priori 
grounds, to have lived all the time in clear daylight, 
rather than sceptics will own that there could be any 
real need for a supernatural revelation. 

But the objection is no less faulty and worthless in 
its reasoning, than opposed to the plainest facts in the 
religious history of the world. Miraculous messages 
imply no fault in the Divine plan, but only sin and 
corruption on the part of men. Means of religious 
light, adequate to the wants of sinless creatures, have 
been provided from the first, in the works of nature and 
the rich bounties of providence, and have never been 
withdrawn. It is sin and rebellion alone, which have 
dulled the understanding, and perverted the will, so 
that nature no longer avails to lead the souls of men 
" through nature up to nature's God." This same 



MAN'S NEED OF DIVINE EEVELATION. 25 

apostasy has also called into exercise deeper attributes 
of the Godhead, and has made it needful for men to 
apprehend higher truths than nature alone could teach 
them, before they can be recovered to the lost favour 
and image of their Maker again. Even in the outward 
world, the food of health is far more abundant than the 
medicines which are required in sickness. The pro- 
fligate, who has ruined his health by vice and intemper- 
ance, has no right to blame the constitution of nature, 
if the remedies of the physician, unlike his daily bread, 
are costly in price, and possibly difficult to procure. 
Christianity, on the face of it, professes to be a Divine 
remedy for a dangerous moral disease. The Saviour, to 
whom it points, is the Physician of souls. The disease 
which needs an effectual cure, is guilt, disobedience, and 
rebellion against the Divine will. Those who are 
suffering from such a malady only prove its depth and 
malignity, when they claim that the Great Physician 
shall consult their notions of equity, rather than his 
own wisdom and holiness, in the means he may gra- 
ciously devise for restoring guilty and rebellious sinners 
to moral health and happiness again. 

II. The second charge against miraculous revelation 
is, that it would be positively hurtful, because it dis- 
parages and sets aside natural religion, and confines 
inspiration to a few persons only, in a remote age of the 
world's history. 

The reply to this strange indictment is very simple. 
The gift of revelation withdraws from mankind nothing 
which they really possessed before. Instead of blotting 
out the lessons of Grod's natural works, it revives them, 
and makes all those works speak in clearer accents than 
ever to the souls of men. The only sacrifice it involves 
is that of mischievous delusions, by which men indulge 
in vain fancies of light and knowledge, while they are 
really sunk in gross darkness. It forbids the guilty 



26 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

rebel to say " Peace, peace," when there is no peace. 
It forbids the cruel savage, " his hands smeared all over 
with the blood of human sacrifice," to think that he 
needs no mediator or advocate, but " stands close to 
God, may feel his beautiful presence, and have familiar 
access to him," and without change or repentance, may 
" sit down " with prophets and saints " in the kingdom 
of God." All the means of instruction, which nature 
without or conscience within supply to men, remain as 
before, or rather their efficacy is largely increased. The 
only loss is that of the moral delirium, which boasts of 
health amidst the symptoms of a raging fever ; and 
extols man's high capacities for knowing and loving his 
Maker, amidst the wide-spread ruin of a moral desola- 
tion which has reached from the first dawn of history 
down to our own days, and has made every page of 
the world's history resemble the roll of the prophet, full 
of " lamentations, and mourning, and woe." 

Again, the charge that inspiration is thus confined to ■! 
a few individuals, and the presence of God restricted 
to particular times, places, and persons, has no other 
ground than a palpable abuse of terms. Inspiration, 
in the sense in which the Christian claims it for pro- 
phets and evangelists, instead of being made universal 
by the sceptic, is denied and rejected altogether. In 
the sense affirmed by the sceptic himself, or as a common 
gift or capacity of all men, it is not denied by the 
Christian, but is only freed from an absurd and mis- 
chievous exaggeration. It is the constant and daily 
prayer of the Church of Christ, to the God of the Bible, 
that " by his holy inspiration we may think those 
things which be good ; and by his merciful guiding we 
may perform the same," and that he would " cleanse 
the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of his 
Holy Spirit, so that we may perfectly love him, and 
worthily magnify his holy name." The double doctrine, 






MAN'S NEED OF DIVINE REVELATION. 



of a natural action of the Spirit of God on the souls of 
all men in sustaining and upholding their various 
faculties, and of a special action on the souls of the good 
and holy, to renew and sanctify them from day to day, 
is a main and fundamental part of the orthodox Christian 
faith. The belief in a more special inspiration, usually 
confined to " holy men of God," but given in some rare 
cases to others, and designed to fit them for the special 
work of transmitting pure truth from God to their 
fellow men, does not interfere in the least with those 
wider statements of the gospel, which are confirmed by 
the daily experience of all pious Christians. There is 
thus a natural, a moral, and a prophetic inspiration. 
The natural belongs to all mankind. Gen. ii. 7 ; Job 
xxxii. 8. The moral is the privilege of holy and re- 
generate souls. The prophetic belongs to those whom 
the sovereign will of the Supreme Lawgiver has singled 
out to convey and record his own messages, with Divine 
authority, for the general benefit of the human race. 

III. The third objection brought against Divine re- 
velation is, that it lays a yoke upon the reason and 
conscience, and makes them, subject to a degrading 
tyranny. 

The true relation between the Bible and human con- 
science needs a distinct inquiry, since it is this point 
which forms the main divergence between Christian 
Faith and a Negative or Semi-infidel Theology. As 
a prehminary objection, this indictment against the 
word of God in the Bible only calls for a very brief 
reply. Assuming the claim of a supposed revelation 
to be false, and its contents to be unworthy of that 
God in whose name it is given, there can be no doubt 
that the admission of its Divine authority will impose 
a heavy burden upon the conscience and reason of all 
whom it has deceived. They must either lower their 



28 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

conceptions of the Almighty to the level of a human 
forgery ; or else put a force upon language, and submit 
to the immoral practice of making disingenuous and 
forced interpretations of the messages they profess to 
receive as Divine. At least this result must follow, 
unless we ascribe a moral wisdom and excellence to the 
pretended revelation, which it seems incredible that a 
mere imposture should attain. 

On the other hand, if the God of truth and wisdom 
has really been pleased to make known his will to 
men, and has given them messages, sealed with clear 
marks of their Divine origin; then the obligation to 
receive these messages in their true character, and to 
use them for gaining insight into. the ways and works 
of God, can never be felt as an oppressive yoke by 
the wise, the humble, and the juous. Such a gift can 
be irksome and oppressive only to the proud, the self- 
willed, and - the profane. It is not reason and con- 
science, but rather a Satanic pride, which refuses to sit 
humbly at the feet of our Lord ; and instead of wonder- 
ing at " the gracious words which proceed from his 
lips," and treasuring them in the heart with gladness 
and reverence, sees in them a usurpation on its own 
fancied right to speculate, without restraint, and with- 
out a guide, on the character, the works, and the provi- 
dence of the Most High. The mere fact that such an 
objection could be made to the reception of the Bible, 
as endued with Divine authority, by those who have 
been reared in a Christian land, and have had means 
of acquainting themselves with its treasures of grace 
and holiness, is only a new illustration of the truth of 
one of its inspired warnings. The God of the Bible, in 
every age, hides his truth from the wise and prudent, and 
reveals it to babes. " He hath filled the hungry with 
good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away." 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 29 



CHAPTER III, 

THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The contrast between Christian faith and that school of 
thought which professes to introduce a more free and 
rational theology, lies much deeper than the question 
whether the canon of Scripture be perfect, and its 
inspiration verbal, plenary, and complete. It relates 
to that main feature of the whole message, on which its 
practical worth and excellency entirely depends. Is 
Christianity itself human or Divine ? Is it simply a 
product of imposture or superstition, or at best of 
the unaided wisdom of imperfect, prejudiced, and 
fallible men ? Or is it the voice of the living Grod, 
speaking to his creatures by prophets, whom he has 
himself commissioned and inspired, and by his only 
begotten Son ? Is it a message, every part of which 
must stand or fall, separately, according to our private 
opinion of its merit ? or one which has been ratified, in 
all its parts, "with signs and wonders, and divers 
miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his 
own will ?" 

Here the first duty of every honest inquirer is to 
learn what the writers of the Bible themselves affirm 
respecting the nature of their message. Their state- 
ment, of course, will not of itself prove the reality of 
their Divine mission. " If I bear record of myself," 
our Lord said to the Pharisees, " my record is not true." 



30 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

The mere assertion of high claims, unsustained by any- 
further evidence, is always suspicious. It may often be 
a mark of imposture, or of fanatical delusion. But 
still an important end is at once fulfilled, when it is 
seen that the Law and the Gospel, as recorded by 
Moses and the Evangelists, do manifestly claim for 
themselves a supernatural character as the proof of 
their Divine origin. The controversy is greatly nar 
rowed. Men will be saved from the delusion of 
supposing that they are genuine Christians of a more 
enlightened school, while they submit the gospel piece- 
meal to the tribunal of their own private reason, and 
admit or reject in its pages just whatever pleases them. 
If the Bible is, or even if it contains, a Divinely-attested 
message, then our first duty is to ascertain to what 
part, whether more or less, the attestation is given, 
and to receive all such portions with the docility of 
a childlike faith. But a book, every part of which is 
to be received or rejected independently, according as 
we judge its histories to be true or faulty, its doctrines 
reasonable or foolish, its morals sound and true, or 
unsound and erroneous, differs in no respect from any 
other book whatever. Miraculous attestations to such a 
message are a ridiculous superfluity, since we cannot 
tell what it is they are meant to attest. There would 
thus be an apparatus of special interferences for no 
practical end ; a miraculous derangement of the course 
of nature, and a singular change in the usual laws of 
Providence, completely wasted and thrown away. 

Every midway position between belief and disbelief 
becomes untenable, in the presence of a distinct claim 
by our Lord and his apostles to a miraculous commis- 
sion. If this claim be true, then a merely eclectic Chris- 
tianity is an absurdity in logic, and, in morals, a direct 
rebellion against the authority of God. If the claim be 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OP CHRISTIANITY. 31 

false, those who make . it must be either impostors or 
fanatics ; and hence they must rank lower, either in 
simple honesty, or in wisdom and good sense, than good 
men of an ordinary stamp, who have never been 
guilty of so great an extravagance. The mere exist- 
ence of this claim on their part, when once proved, 
shuts out every compromise. Those cannot be safe 
guides, as mere human teachers and moralists, who 
have either feigned or fancied a direct commission from 
heaven they never received. It is absurd in this case 
to deny the authority of the message, and still to look 
up to the messengers with high admiration and peculiar 
deference. We ought rather to abhor them for their 
dishonesty, or else to pity them for their delusion. The 
remark of a modern sceptical writer has a wider appli- 
cation than to the doctrine and the moral virtue directly 
named in it. " When the New Testament attributes 
humility to Christ, it is manifestly under the notion of 
him as a Divine Being, who has descended from a 
celestial condition into this lower state of human suffer- 
ing and degradation. As soon as Jesus is regarded as a 
real (mere) man, the reversed condition of necessity 
requires the corresponding reversal of the moral charac- 
teristic into one or another phase of lofty daring and 
unmeasured aspiration." 

Let us turn, then, to the New Testament, and inquire 
what is its own evidence. Are the miracles and 
alleged fulfilments of prophecy a mere excrescence, 
which may be entirely pruned away, leaving behind 
them a system of pure morality unaltered and un- 
impaired? Or do they form the woof of the whole 
narrative, so that almost every page, and every main 
fact, receives the stamp of a Divine authority, or else is 
tainted with a hopeless leprosy of fraud and delusion ? 
Let us examine in succession the Gospels of St. Mat- 



32 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

thew and St. John, the Book of Acts, and the Apostolic 
Epistles. 

I. The Gospel of St. Matthew. 

Out of the twenty-eight chapters of the first Gospel, 
three-fourths contain the mention of some miracle, or 
some asserted fulfilment of prophecy. But this fact 
alone would give a very imperfect impression of the 
way in which the supernatural element forms the tex- 
ture of this Divine biography. 

Let us begin with the narrative of our Lord's birth 
and infancy. The first verse alludes evidently to two 
leading prophecies, ten and fifteen centuries old, as 
being fulfilled in the whole course of the sacred narra- 
tive. The birth of our Lord is next declared to be a 
miracle, and also to be the fulfilment of a third prophecy 
in Isaiah. The wise men are led to Jerusalem, miracu- 
lously, by the star which appears to them in the East. 
They, along with Herod, learn the birth-place of Christ 
from the prophecy of Micah, also seven centuries old. 
The star re-appears, and guides them to the very place. 
A dream from God warns them not to return to Herod. 
An angel, by a dream, directs the flight of Joseph into 
Egypt. The angel reappears to direct his return, and a 
fifth dream from God instructs him to leave Judea and 
return to Galilee. 

The opening of the Public Ministry, in the next two 
chapters, has the same character. We have first, at our 
Lord's baptism, the opening of the heavens, the descent 
of the Spirit, and the miraculous proclamation from 
heaven — " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well- 
pleased." Next follows a supernatural fast of forty 
days, a direct conflict of the Redeemer and the Tempter, 
a miraculous transfer of our Lord to the pinnacle of the 
temple, and a record of the ministration of angels. A 
prophecy of Isaiah is shewn to be fulfilled in the chosen 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 

theatre of our Lord's ministry, and his work is affirmed 
to be the cure of " all manner of sickness and all manner 
of disease." 

The Sermon on the Mount is mainly a code of Chris- 
tian morality, but still it contains the strongest asser- 
tions of our Lord's supernatural mission. Near its 
opening the Divine authority of the Law and the Pro- 
phets is stated in most emphatic terms ; while a claim 
of like authority on the part of 'our Lord was the main 
impression his words left on the mind of his hearers. 
" They were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught 
them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." 
Miracles, also, are represented as so closely linked with 
Ms message that many counterfeits would arise. " Many 
will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not 
prophesied in thy name ? and in thy name have cast out 
devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ?" 

In the six chapters that follow, the miraculous ele- 
ment is conspicuous from first to last. They begin 
with the healing of the leper, of the centurion's ser- 
vant, and the mother-in-law of Simon Peter. Many 
miraculous cures are then dismissed in a brief sentence. 

When the even was come, they brought unto him 
many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out 
the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick." 
Then follows the stilling of the tempest, and the dis- 
possession of the demoniacs of G-adara, the cure of the 
palsy, and of the issue of blood, the resurrection of the 
ruler's daughter, the healing of the two blind men, and 
of a dumb man possessed with a devil. The eighth and 
ninth chapters, in short, are filled almost entirely with 
the mention of these miracles, and close with the more 
general statement that Jesus went through the cities 
and villages " healing every sickness and every disease 
among the people." 



34 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

The commission of the twelve apostles confers on 
them miraculous gifts. " He gave them power over 
unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner 
of sickness and all manner of disease." The words of 
Christ are recorded, by which the power was given : 
" Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
out devils ; freely ye have received, freely give." The 
reply to the Baptist's message alludes to the number of: 
the miracles and their notoriety. " Go and shew John 
again those things which ye do hear and see. The blind 
receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are 
cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and 
the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed 
is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." The 
Baptist's own mission is next declared to be a distinct 
fulfilment of prophecy. Ohorazin, Bethsaida, and Caper- 
naum have solemn judgments denounced, because of the 
greatness of the miracles they had witnessed, and oi 
their own stubborn unbelief. The next chapter con^ 
tains the cure of the withered hand, and a signal dis- 
possession, attended by a double cure of dumbness and 
blindness, which fills the people with amazement. The 
following discourse is occasioned by an admission of 
the truth of the miracles on the part of the Pharisees, 
and their attempt to elude the natural inference, of our 
Lord's Divine mission. The visit to Nazareth, at the 
close of the next chapter, gives two indirect assertions 
of the same general fact. The Nazarenes exclaim, 
" Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty 
works ?" while the evangelist adds to his account of their 
perplexity the brief and simple comment, " He did not 
many mighty works there, because of their unbelief." 

The next division of the Gospel, ch. xiv.-xx. is 
equally full of statements of miracle and fulfilled pro- 
phecy. It begins with the attempt of Herod to 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 

account for our Lord's mighty works by the supposi- 
tion that the Baptist was risen from the dead (xiv. 2.) 
Then follow, in quick succession, the healing of many 
sick on the further side of the sea of Galilee (ver. 14), 
the miraculous feeding of the five thousand (verses 15- 
21), the walking of Jesus on the sea (verses 22-27), 
the attempt of Peter, its partial success and speedy 
failure (verses 28-32), the healing of many sick after the 
return to the western side (verses 34-36), the disposses- 
sion of the daughter of the woman of Canaan (xv. 21- 
28), multiplied cures of " the lame, the dumb, the blind, 
the maimed, and many others" (29-31), and the second 
miracle of the seven loaves and the four thousand 
(xv. 32-39) ; a rebuke of the disciples for their forget- 
fulness of the two successive miracles of the loaves 
(xvi. 9), a prophecy of our Lord's resurrection (ver. 21), 
the transfiguration (xvii. 1), the cure of the demoniac 
child (ver. 14), the procurement, miraculously, of the 
tribute-money (ver. 27), and, last of all, the healing of 
the two blind men in the neighbourhood of Jericho (xx. 
30-34). 

The last portion, occupied with the events of Passion 
Week, begins with the fulfilment of a prophecy of 
Zechariah, the healing of the blind and lame in the 
temple, and the curse on the barren fig-tree, speedily 
fulfilled ; while it is chiefly occupied with two main 
subjects — the accomplishment of many prophecies in 
our Lord's betrayal and crucifixion, and the last and 
crowning miracle of his resurrection from the dead. 

It is needless to enter into the details of the second 
and third gospels, which agree very nearly with that 
of St. Matthew. St. Mark has thirty-five or thirty-six 
records of miracles, or allusions to their occurrence, and 
the number is still higher in St. Luke. Out of the few 
incidents peculiar to St. Mark, two are records of fresh 

d 2 



36 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

miracles, unnoticed by St. Matthew — the cure of the 
deaf man who had an impediment in his speech, and of 
the blind man at Bethsaida. St. Luke, also, in addition 
to the miracles of the first Gospel, contains the vision of 
Zechariah, his miraculous dumbness and his recovery, 
the visit of the angel to the Yirgin, the appearance to 
the shepherds, the prophecy of Simeon, the mission of 
the Seventy with miraculous gifts, like those of the 
Twelve, and their return with the joyful exclamation, 
" Lord, even the devils -are subject to us through thy 
name." The mention of the miracles, also, in each of 
these gospels, reaches from their first opening to their 
common close in the history of the resurrection. 

II. The Gospel of St. John. 

The fourth Gospel has so plainly a doctrinal aim, 
and is composed so largely of our Lord's discourses, 
that we might expect to find in it only a sparing men- 
tion of the miracles. This is true of the number of ; 
them, but not of their prominence in the history. On 
the contrary, all the main divisions of this Gospel, and 
all its chief discourses, depend on some miracle of our 
Lord. 

The opening chapters proclaim his Divine glory, and 
recount his first entrance on his public ministry. And 
how are they introduced ? By a signal testimony of 
the Baptist, our Lord's forerunner, to the sign by which 
the Messiah would be made known to him. " I saw the 
Spirit descending like a dove, and it abode upon him." 
And this sign concurred with a previous message to the 
Baptist himself. " And I knew him not ; but he that 
sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, 
Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and 
remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with 
the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this 
is the Son of God." The call of the apostles is marked by 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 

a miraculous revelation to Nathanael ; and the opening 
of our Lord's ministry, by the miracle at Cana, and other 
works in Jerusalem at the feast. The conversation with 
the Samaritan woman ascribes to our Lord prophetic 
insight, plainly supernatural, which forced from her the 
exclamation, " Come, see a man which told me all 
things that ever I did : is not this the Christ ?" The 
return into Galilee is marked by the cure of the noble- 
man's son at Capernaum. The fifth chapter forms a 
distinct "portion of the Gospel, separated in time from 
what precedes and follows ; and the whole is based upon 
the cure of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. 
The sixth is another distinct portion, about the time of 
the last passover but one. It repeats, with some varia- 
tions of detail, the miracles of the five thousand and the 
walking on the sea, recorded in the earlier gospels. It 
adds also a full mention of the discourse at Capernaum, 
which arose out of the miracle, and alludes to it from 
first to last. The visit at the Feast of Tabernacles con- 
tains various discourses at Jerusalem (ch. vii.-x.), but 
the central fact is the cure of the man blind from his 
birth, which is given in this Gospel alone. Then follows 
the remarkable history of the raising of Lazarus, in the 
eleventh and part of the twelfth chapter, which links 
itself, by the allusion (xi. 17), with the great concourse 
at our Lord's last entry into Jerusalem. In the midst 
of the discourses, again, at the Last Supper, we find this 
striking summary of our Lord's ministry, and the guilt 
of Jewish unbelief: " If I had not done among them 
the works which no other man did, they had not had 
sin ; but now have they both seen and hated both me 
and my Father." To complete the series, in the closing 
chapter of this Gospel we have the record of a miracu- 
lous draught of fishes, which followed our Lord's resur- 
rection — a counterpart, but with important differences, 



38 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

of an earlier miracle recorded by St. Luke, which took 
place near the commencement of our Lord's public 
ministry. 

This Gospel also, in harmony with its later date and 
more reflective character, not merely recounts various 
miracles, but suggests and unfolds the connection between 
these tokens of our Lord's Divine mission, and the truth 
of which they were the public confirmation and evi- 
dence. Thus we read in chap. ii. 11, " This beginning 
of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested 
forth his glory ; and his disciples believed on him." In 
the same chapter we are told once more that " many 
believed on his name, when they saw the miracles 
which he did." Nicodemus opens his interview with 
the simple statement — " Rabbi, we know that thou art a 
teacher come from God, for no man can do these mira- 
cles that thou doest, except God be with him." The 
sluggish faith which craves perpetually for fresh mar- 
vels, is reproved in the words " Except ye see signs and 
wonders, ye will not believe." Yet a sign is given to 
the nobleman by the speedy and sudden cure of his son, j 
and " himself believed, and his whole house." In the 
discourse which follows the cure of the impotent man, | 
our Lord assigns his miracles a middle place among the 
proofs of his Divine mission. " I have a witness greater 
than that of John ; for the works which the Father 
hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear 
witness of me that the Father hath sent me." In the 
discourse at Capernaum, he blames their sordid interest 
in the outward meal provided for them, instead of their 
thoughts being fixed on the miracle itself, and on the 
proof which it supplied of his true character. " Ye seek 
me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did 
eat of the loaves, and were filled." In the narrative of 
the blind man, the same lesson is put into his own lips. 



I 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 

" Since the world began was it not heard that any man 
opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this 
man were not of G-od, he could do nothing." In the 
case of Lazarus, the conclusion appears from the lips of 
the Pharisees themselves : " What do we ? for this man 
doeth many miracles. If we let him alone, all men will 
believe on him : and the Romans will come, and take 
away both our place and nation." Our Lord's con- 
demnation of the Jews, because of the greatness of his 
own works, has been already quoted from his parting 
discourse before the crucifixion. The apostle himself 
sums up these brief but instructive comments, in his 
own statement of the scope of his whole narrative, 
" And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence 
of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, ye 
might have life through his name." 

III. The Book of Acts. 

The Book of Acts forms a transition from the long 
series of Bible histories to those of later times, after the 
canon of Scripture was closed, in which the supernatural 
element ceases to appear. In time, it occupies more 
than thirty years (a.d. 30-63J, and includes the reigns 
of four emperors, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and 
Nero, one of whom is mentioned by name. In place, 
it includes nearly all the main centres of civilization 
in the brightest days of the Roman empire — Jerusalem, 
Csesarea, the Syrian and Pisidian Antioch, Philippi, 
Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Alexandria, and Rome. It 
includes also the mention of two Jewish kings, and four 
Roman governors, two of Judea, one of Cyprus, and one 
of Achaia ; of the Asiarchs of Ephesus, the chief man of 
Melita, and the military prefect of Rome ; and thus 
links itself at every turn with the most familiar ele- 



40 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

ments of classical and Jewish history. Yet the mi- 
raculous element continues throughout its whole course, 
and is not less prominent than in the gospels them- 
selves. Let us briefly notice the successive passages. 
A series of simple references, with a few words of occa- 
sional comment, will perhaps exhibit this feature in the 
clearest way. 

Chap. i. 9-11. The Ascension, with the appearance and message of two 
angels. 
16-21. Fulfilment of prophecy in the death of Judas, 
ii. 1-12. The miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of 
tongues. 
43. Many wonders and signs done by the apostles, 
iii. 1-11. The healing of the lame man at the gate of the temple. 
The rest of the chapter is an address, founded entirely 
upon this public miracle, 
iv. 13-18. The confession of the miracle by the Jewish council, with 
their charge to the apostles to speak no more in the 
name of Jesus. 
21, 22. " So when they had further threatened them, they let them 
go, finding nothing how they might punish them ; for all 
men glorified God for that which was done. For the 
man was above forty years old on whom this miracle of 
healing was shown." 
iv. 31. The place is shaken where the disciples were assembled, 
and they are all filled with the Holy Ghost, 
v. 1-11. The miraculous judgment on Ananias and Sapphira. 

12. Many wonders and signs done by the hands of the apostles. 
15, 16. The sick are cured by the shadow of Peter passing by, and 

multitudes resort for healing to Jerusalem. 
19-26. The apostles are miraculously freed from prison by an angel, 
vi. 8. Stephen works great wonders and miracles among the 
people, 
vii. 55, 56. A miraculous vision to Stephen before his death, 
viii. 5-8. Great joy in Samaria from the miraculous cures wrought 
by Philip the Evangelist. 
14-19. Gifts of the Spirit bestowed by imposition of the apostles' 
hands, and money offered by Simon Magus, to purchase 
the same power. 
26. Philip sent, by the message of an angel, to meet the 
Ethiopian eunuch. 
39, 40. Philip miraculously caught away, after the baptism of the 

eunuch, and found at Azotus. 
is. 1-9. The conversion of Saul by a miraculous vision. 
10-18. The vision of Ananias, and miraculous cure of Saul's blind- 



I 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 

Chap. ix. 32-35. The cure of Eneas by St. Peter ; 36-42, the raising ot 
Dorcas from the dead, 
x. 1-3. The vision of the angel to Cornelius; 9-16, the vision to 

St. Peter. 
44-48. Miraculous gifts of the Spirit bestowed on Cornelius and 
other Gentiles, 
xi. 1-18. Rehearsal to the church of the miraculous conversion of 
Cornelius. 
28-30. The prophecy of Agabus fulfilled under Claudius, 
xii. 1-17. The deliverance of St. Peter from prison by the message of 
an angel. 
22, 23. The sudden judgment on Herod ascribed to the angel of 
the Lord, 
xiii. 6-12. Blindness miraculously inflicted on Elymas by St. Paul, 
xiv. 3. Signs and wonders done at Iconium by the hands of Paul 
and Barnabas. 
8-18. Cure of the impotent man at Lystra, and Divine honour 
offered to the apostles, 
xv. 12. Barnabas and Paul report in the council at Jerusalem 
" what miracles and wonders God had wrought among 
the Gentiles by them." 
xvi. 8-10. St. Paul guided into Europe by a miraculous vision. 
18. The damsel dispossessed of the spirit of divination. 
25-34. The earthquake at Philippi, the loosing of all the prisoners, 
and the jailer's conversion. 
xvii. 31. St. Paul at Athens bears witness to the fact of Christ's 
resurrection, 
xviii. 9, 10. St. Paul at Corinth has a miraculous vision, and message 
from the Lord, 
xix. 6. Gifts of the Spirit are bestowed on twelve disciples at 

Ephesus. 
11, 12. Special miracles are wrought by St. Paul at Ephesus. 
13-17. Vain attempt of Jewish exorcists to copy the miracles of 
the apostle. 
xx. 7-12. Miraculous recoveiy of Eutychus. 23. St. Paul claims to 
know by the Holy Ghost the bonds and imprisonment 
which await him. 
xxi. 9-12. Prophecy of Agabus. 

xxii. 6-16. St. Paul's account of his own conversion, 17-21, and his 
vision in the temple at Jerusalem. 
xxiii. 11. A vision to St. Paul, and a prediction of his journey to 
Rome, 
xxvi. 8-23. St. Paul's account of his conversion before Agrippa and 
Festus. 
xxvii. 10. St. Paul's prediction of the shipwreck, 23-26, angelic vision, 
and further prophecy, 
xxviii. 3-6. St. Paul's miraculous escape from the viper, 7, and cure of 
Publius' father, 9, 10, and many others. 
25-27. Prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled in the unbelief of the Jews. 



42 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

This brief list of references will shew how intimate 
and inseparable is the union of the miraculous element 
with the whole course of this apostolic history. From 
the resurrection and ascension, in the first verses, to the 
gifts of healing exercised by St. Paul at Melita, after his 
escape from shipwreck, this feature gives its colouring 
to every main event in the narrative. To borrow the 
phrase of the able author of ' The Restoration of Belief,' 
the relation is one of intimate cohesion, and not of mere 
adhesion. Once attempt to remove it and " the vitality 
of the writer is gone, though much that he has recorded 
might still be true. We have slain the man, but if 
he carried about with him anything that is valuable, 
we take it to ourselves." Or rather, we may go still 
further, and say that, when the miraculous element 
is rejected, nothing of real value is left behind. The 
historical fragments that would remain would be too 
few, and too suspicious, to save the bandit's occupation 
of rifling the dead from being a pure waste of learned 
labour. 

IV. The Apostolic Epistles. 

When we turn from the historical books of the New 
Testament to the letters of the apostles to individuals, 
or to the churches they had founded, a marked change 
occurs in the frequency with which any direct mention 
of miracles occurs. The fundamental doctrine, indeed, 
of the resurrection of Christ meets us in almost every 
page, and is the constant basis of the doctrinal state- 
ments of the apostles, and of their practical appeals 
to the conscience. Setting this aside, however, out of 
twenty-one epistles there are only seven in which 
the topic of miracles is w directly introduced. In the 
other fourteen they are passed by in total silence ; or 
if there be allusion to them, it is so delicate and unob- 
trusive, as to require the most careful search to find 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 

any trace of it. Out of a hundred and twenty-one 
chapters, there is only one which contains a formal and 
distinct statement of the existence and nature of mi- 
raculous gifts in the early churches ; and out of nearly 
three thousand verses, there are, besides that one 
chapter, only about twenty scattered up and down, 
which contain distinct allusions to the same truth. 
This fact has been made, by the writer just quoted, 
the ground of a powerful argument, to confirm the 
honesty, the moral uprightness of aim, the practical 
soundness of judgment, remote from all false or blind 
enthusiasm, of the apostolic writers. It is doubly 
striking, when we observe that the churches where 
St. Paul's authority was most fully allowed, and in 
which he placed the most confidence, are the same 
with whom this topic is omitted ; and that he appeals 
to it only in those cases, like the churches of Galatia 
and of Corinth, where he had to administer strong 
rebuke, or where his authority was encountered by 
some evil influence. The prominence, then, of the 
moral element in the epistles, and the comparative 
fewness of their direct allusions to miracles, form a 
striking pledge of the uprightness, veracity, and prac- 
tical wisdom of the apostles of Christ. 

But when we view the subject from the opposite 
side, it will be clear that the assertion of a miraculous 
element in the gospel, whether directly made, or indi- 
rectly implied, runs throughout the epistles, no less 
than through all the historical books of the New Testa- 
ment. Let us review them briefly in the probable order 
of time. The contrast of supernatural and non-super- 
natural epistles refers only to the explicit character of 
allusions to present miraculous powers exercised by the 
apostles themselves. But with regard to Christianity 
itself, the direct assertion or indirect assumption of its 



44 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

supernatural evidence and authority is common to every 
one of these writings, without a single exception. 

The two Epistles to the Thessalonians hold the first 
place in order of time. They are earnest and warm 
outpourings of the apostle's heart to young converts in 
a time of severe persecution. No direct assertion of 
his own miraculous gifts is therefore found in them. 
They are reminded, however, that the gospel came to 
them " not in word only, but also in power, and in the 
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance ;" which, when 
compared with the history, contains a scarcely doubt- 
ful allusion to the Swa/meis, or miraculous gifts of the 
Spirit, which accompanied his preaching. They are 
reminded that their new hope was "to- wait for his 
Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead," — ■ 
a passing affirmation of the crowning miracle of the 
gospel history. The apostle associates himself and his 
fellows with the prophets of the Old Testament, and 
with the Lord Jesus himself, under the common cha- 
racter of messengers from Grod, whom the Jews had 
persecuted because of their messages. He speaks to 
them (1 Thess. iv. 1) as one endued with a Divine 
authority, and announces to them the order and cir- 
cumstances of the resurrection, with the significant 
preface—" This we say unto you by the word of the 
Lord." The double charge " Quench not the Spirit, 
despise not prophesyings," when collated with other 
epistles, includes evidently an allusion to miraculous 
gifts. In the second epistle even this indirect allusion 
is not found. Still, the first chapter is a warning of 
judgment ready to light on those " who obey not the 
gospel," which clearly implies its authority as a direct 
message from heaven ; and the second contains a 
further warning of a strong delusion, with signs and 
wonders of falsehood, to which those would be aban- 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 

doned who had rejected the truth of God. No stronger 
assertion could be made, by mere implication, that true 
signs and wonders had been notoriously given to attest 
the truth of the gospel. 

The Epistle to the Galatians, unlike the two earlier 
ones to Thessalonica, is a polemic against Judaizing 
teachers, with strong rebuke of the churches addressed 
for their fickleness and inconstancy in the faith. The 
authority of the apostle was questioned or denied, and 
he begins his letter by asserting it in the plainest terms. 
He calls himself " Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither 
by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who 
raised him from the dead." His reference to miracles, 
accordingly, becomes distinct, repeated, and earnest. 
He appeals, first of all, to the notorious fact of his own 
miraculous and sudden conversion, giving no details of 
the vision, it is true, but still asserting plainly the super- 
natural character of the revelation. Then, in the midst 
of the keenest censure and rebuke, he reminds the 
Galatians of gifts of the Spirit they had themselves 
received, and follows it by a reference to his own 
apostolic credentials. " He that ministered to you the 
Spirit, and wrought miracles among you, was it by the 
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith ?" 

The Epistles to the Corinthians are addressed to a 
church, where the apostle had much to blame, and 
where his own authority had been depreciated and 
opposed. But instead of avoiding, on this account, 
all reference to miracles, the allusions to them are 
unusually full and various. He begins by reminding 
them that they came behind in no spiritual gift, so 
that his testimony respecting Christ had been visibly 
confirmed among them. He appeals to the notorious 
fact of his own miraculous conversion. " Am I not 
an apostle ? have I not seen Christ Jesus our Lord ?" 



46 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

He occupies a whole chapter with a statement of the 
spiritual gifts, some directly miraculous, others more 
purely spiritual, which were in exercise among them ; 
and he gives the palm of excellence, not to those which 
were most startling to the outward senses, but to 
those which referred to the minds and hearts of 
Christians, and above all, to the crowning grace of 
charity or love. He resumes the subject in another 
chapter, and gives rules, with Divine authority, for the 
mode in which these wonderful gifts were to be exer- 
cised. He describes, in passing, their probable effect 
upon strangers who might be present in their assem- 
blies. " And thus are the secrets of his heart made 
manifest ; and so, falling down on his face, he will 
worship God, and report that God is in you of a 
truth." 1 Cor. xiv. 25. Amidst this clear recognition 
of their miraculous endowments, he firmly claims for 
himself a superior degree of them, and a Divine 
authority which it was their plain duty to allow. 
" I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than 
you all." " If any man account himself to be a 
prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the 
things I write unto you are the commandments of 
the Lord," verses 18, 37. He refers to five distinct 
appearances of the Lord after his resurrection, as to 
notorious facts, which needed no proof or comment, 
and closes with a striking reference to the vision he 
himself had received. " Last of all he was seen of 
me also, as of one born out of due time." With a 
calm and unaltered tone, he turns from a description 
of the most striking miracles to a course of earnest 
reasoning on the doctrine of the resurrection ; and 
from this he returns to minute details with regard 
to collections for the poor, and the arrangement of 
his own journeys. 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 

In the second letter, after the tidings of their repent- 
ance had reached him, three-fourths are without any 
clear allusion to miraculous gifts, and are occupied only 
with a rich variety of moral lessons and exhortations, 
based on the doctrinal truths of the gospel. But 
towards the close, the mention of those gifts recurs 
in various forms. " I suppose I was not a whit 
behind the very chiefest apostles." " I will come to 
visions and revelations of the Lord." " In nothing 
am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be 
nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought 
among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and 
mighty deeds." " If I come again, I will not spare, 
since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me." " I 
write these things, being absent, lest being present 
I should use sharpness, according to the power which 
the Lord hath given me, to edification, and not to 
destruction." Words could not more plainly express 
a claim to authority, received directly from the Lord 
himself, and ratified by miraculous powers, which had 
been exercised already in the midst of the Corinthian 
converts. 

The Epistle to the Romans is occupied throughout 
with a full statement of Christian doctrine, and of the 
practical lessons based upon it. Nine-tenths of it are 
complete before there is any distinct allusion whatever 
to miraculous attestations of the gospel. But at the 
close it appears, though briefly, in the most decisive 
form. " I will not dare to speak of any of those things 
which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the 
Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty 
signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God ; 
so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyri- 
cum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ." The 
assertion is doubly striking from its association with 



48 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

this precise geographical limit, and the mention of a 
province named nowhere else in Scripture, so as to 
bring out the strictly historical character of the state- 
ment into full and bold relief. 

The Epistles from Rome during the first imprison- 
ment are addressed to prosjDerous churches, and contain 
praise and encouragement, rather than rebuke. Ac- 
cordingly they have only the slightest and most general 
allusions to Christian miracles. Traces of them, how- 
ever, do appear. The Ephesians, after they believed, 
had been " sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." 
The mystery of the gospel had been made known to 
St. Paul " by revelation," and was revealed unto all 
the " holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." The 
Lord, when he ascended on high, " gave gifts unto 
men," and foremost among these the endowments of 
apostles and prophets, where even the second and lower 
title implies a supernatural claim. In the Pastoral 
Epistles similar allusions are found. The Spirit had 
spoken expressly of a great departure from the faith. 
1 Tim. iv. 1. Timothy is charged not to neglect the 
gift that was in him, and given by prophecy ; meaning, 
apparently, by the voice of some inspired prophet, 
before or at the time of his first public separation for 
the work of God. He is charged, again, to stir up the 
gift of God, received by imposition of the hands of the 
apostles, a spirit of power as well as of love. The 
allusion to Jannes and Jambres compared with Acts xiii. 
7, 8 ; xv. 12, seems also to imply that signs and 
wonders, like those of Moses, accompanied the preaching 
of the gospel. The statements in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, on the other hand, where rebuke and censure 
are needed, become explicit and full once more. " How 
shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; 
wdiich at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, 



THE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 

and was confirmed to us by them that heard him ; God 
also bearing* them witness, both with signs and wonders, 
and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, 
according to his own will ?" " It is impossible for 
those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the 
good word of God, and the powers of the world to 
come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again nnto 
repentance." " He that despised Moses' law died with- 
out mercy under two or three witnesses : of how much 
sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought 
worthy who hath done despite unto the Spirit of 
grace ?" Heb. ii. 3—5 ; vi. 4, 5 ; x. 28. 

It is needless to pursue the inquiry further. The 
claim to a miraculous and supernatural character, on 
the part of our Lord and his Apostles, runs clearly 
through the whole of the New Testament, and coheres 
inseparably with its historical narrative, its doctrinal 
teaching, and practical exhortations. It appears con- 
spicuous in the whole course of the Four Gospels, from 
the birth of our Lord to his resurrection and ascension 
into heaven. It continues, with the same frequency 
and fulness, throughout the apostolic history, from the 
hour of the Ascension to the voyage and shipwreck of 
the apostle of the Gentiles, and his arrival at the 
metropolis of the Gentile world. In the Epistles it is 
present throughout, but usually as a latent assumption, 
which needed no express and direct statement. But 
in proportion as the authority of the apostle is resisted, 
or sinful practices have to be rebuked, or doctrinal 
declensions exposed, the claim reappears ; and it is 
made most strongly in those very cases where the 
assertion would be evident madness, if it were not un- 
deniably true. It is a weapon sheathed in the presence 
of friends, but drawn from its scabbard whenever vice 



50 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

has to be rebuked, error resisted, or doubts of the 
apostle's authority reduced to silence. 

The result of this review must be plain. A super- 
natural claim is of the essence of Christianity. When- 
ever this is rejected, the nature of the message is 
changed ; the heart is torn out from it, and its life 
expires. It ceases to be the word of God, and acquires, 
by fatal necessity, the very opposite character. It be- 
comes a system of human fraud and imposture, or a 
strange, inexplicable mass of lunacy and mental de- 
rangement. Our Lord and his Apostles must either 
have been messengers with a direct commission from 
God, or else they can have no title to retain the cha- 
racter even of honest, upright, and reasonable men. 
They must either be condemned to an asylum, or else 
obeyed with reverence, because they are seen to be 
clothed with supernatural and Divine authority. 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 51 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 

The Prophets of the Old Testament, and the Apostles 
of the New, and One greater than both — the Lord 
Jesus Christ himself, agree in appealing to miracles to 
prove themselves teachers and messengers sent from 
God. The commission of Moses, as recorded in the 
law, began with a formal statement of this principle of 
Divine revelation. " It shall come to pass, if they will 
not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first 
sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign." 
The rejection of this evidence is declared to be the 
reason why an unbelieving generation were shut out 
from the land of promise. " Because all those men 
which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I 
did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempted me 
now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice ; 
surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto 
their fathers." The language of our Lord in the gos- 
pels is exactly the same: "Woe unto thee, Chorazin; 
woe unto thee, Bethsaida ; for if the mighty works 
which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and 
Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth 
and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and 
Sidon in the day of judgment than for you." The 
lesson taught in these direct and solemn warnings to 
the cities of Galilee, is repeated in his secret instruc- 
tions to his own disciples on the eve of his departure., 

E 2 



52 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

"If I had not done among them the works which none 
other man did, they had not had sin ; but now have 
they both seen and hated both me and my Father." 
So also St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, appealing 
to the same proof of Divine authority. " Truly the 
signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all 
patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds." 
In another epistle the same truth appears once more in 
its aspect of solemn warning. " For if the word spoken 
by angels was stedfast— how shall we escape, if we 
neglect so great salvation ; which at the first began to 
be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by 
them that heard him ; God also bearing them witness, 
both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, 
and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will ?" 
This view of miracles, as the proper and reasonable 
tests of a Divine message, though affirmed by prophets 
and apostles, and our Lord himself, and consequently 
received by all the advocates of Christian faith, bolh in 
ancient and modern times, has been recently questioned 
or contradicted by some who have not openly renounced 
the Christian name. They allege that the progress of 
science has introduced insuperable difficulties into the 
admission of any suspense or reversal of the laws of 
Nature. 1 Miracles, in their opinion, are no longer the 
evidence, but rather the stumbling blocks and encum- 
brances of a professed revelation. 2 The faculty of faith 
has now turned inward, and cannot accept any outer 
manifestations of the truth of God. 3 Narratives inhe- 
rently incredible cannot change their nature, or become 
credible, by the supposition that they fulfil some reli- 
gious purpose. 4 The region of physical change, then, 
must be given up to the unbroken and undisturbed 

1 Essays and Reviews, Ess. iii. p. 104. 2 P. 140. s Ess. i. p. 24. 
4 Ess. ii. p. 83. 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 53 

dominion of natural laws ; and our faith in spiritual 
truth must rest on moral grounds, or acts of pure 
reason, without the least dependence on external tes- 
timony. It has thus become needful to examine 
whether these modern Christians, by means of their 
superior attainments in physical science and meta- 
physical speculation, have really been able . to convict 
their Lord and his Apostles of direct falsehood or 
grievous folly, in that appeal to the evidence of miracles, 
as conclusive tests of a Divine mission, which they liave 
plainly and repeatedly made. 

The objections which have been lately urged against 
the usual view of the Christian evidence, are of three 
kinds. They relate, first, to the temper, style, and 
tone of the advocates of Christianity ; secondly, to the 
credibility of miracles in themselves ; and thirdly, to 
their suitableness and sufficiency, as proofs and tests of 
a Divine revelation. Objections of the first kind are 
preliminary, but still deserve some notice and reply. 
The others enter into the heart of the whole subject, 
and involve the whole controversy between Christian 
Faith, and a spirit of utter and hopeless Disbelief. I 
will examine each of them in order. 

I. The tendency of objections of the first class is to 
prejudge the whole subject, by creating an impression 
of habitual unfairness and insincerity, or of secret 
doubt, on the part of the defenders of Christianity. 
Their usual tone, we are informed, is that of " the 
special partisan and ingenious advocate," and not of 
the unbiassed judge. It is one of polemical acrimony, 
and settled and inveterate prejudice. There is a dis- 
position to triumph in lesser details, rather than to 
grasp comprehensive principles. While infidel objec- 
tions may have been urged in an offensive manner,- 
there is often, in Christian writers, a want of sympathy 



54 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

with difficulties which many inquirers seriously feel in 
admitting the evidences of the Gospel. An appeal to 
argument implies perfect freedom to receive or reject 
the conclusion. It is absurd to reason with men, and 
anathematize them if not convinced by the reasoning ; 
to make honest doubts a proof of moral obliquity, and 
denounce men as sceptics, because they are careful to 
discriminate truth from error. The distinction between 
questions of external fact and of moral truth has been 
extensively overlooked and kept out of sight. Advo- 
cates of historical evidence inconsistently make their 
appeal to conscience and feeling ; while upholders of 
faith and moral conviction, with equal inconsistency, 
regard the external facts of revelation as not less essen- 
tial truth, which it would be jDrofane to question. 1 

It is alleged, further, that it is the common language 
of orthodox writings to advise men not to seek for 
precise answers to objections and difficulties, but to 
regard the whole subject as one which ought to be 
exempt from scrutiny, and received with silent sub- 
mission. Their frequent reply is, that we are not to 
expect demonstrative evidence, that we must be content 
with probabilities, that exact criticism is always sure 
to rake up difficulties, that cavillers find new objections 
when the first are refuted, and reason cannot be con- 
vinced unless the conscience and will are disposed to 
accept the truth. Thus the inquiry is removed from 
the ground of truth and honesty to one of practical 
expedience ; objections are treated as profane, and ex- 
ceptions dismissed, as shocking and immoral, without 
an answer. 2 

Now it cannot be doubted that on this subject, just 
as in many others of inferior moment, the zealotry 
of unscrupulous partisans, bent only on silencing an 

1 Essays and Beviews, Ess. iii. pp. 95-98. ? Ess. iii. pp. 96-100. 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 55 

opponent, or gaining a cheap reputation for orthodoxy 
and controversial ability, may sometimes counterfeit 
the earnestness of a genuine faith. The description, 
however, when applied generally to the modern ad- 
vocates of Christianity, is a serious calumny. The 
arrogance, which partially disfigures the writings of a 
Bentley or a Warburton, is the exception, and not the 
rule. An opposite charge may be made with more 
truth against Paley and other apologists of the last 
century. Their treatment of an inquiry so vital to 
the highest interests of men, however clear, is perhaps 
too cold and passionless. Though mere earnestness is 
a bad substitute for strict reasoning, yet on a subject 
which involves the welfare of souls, and issues of 
eternal life and death, we cannot be reasonable unless 
we are earnest; — so earnest as to shock the taste of 
mere intellectual theorists, and disturb the deathlike 
placidity of their speculations. The tone of calm, cold, 
abstract philosophizing, which the objection seems to 
prescribe to such discussions, has no sanction in the 
practice of the apostles. Their maxim was widely dif- 
ferent. " Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord, 
we persuade men." St. Paul, it is clear, had not made 
the modern discovery, that it is absurd to appeal to 
men's reason, and still to warn them of their guilt and 
danger, when they refuse to yield to the force of evi- 
dence, and thus reject the message of the Gospel. His 
own practice was based on the opposite maxim, that in 
proportion to the strength of the reasons, which prove 
the reality of a Divine message, must be the guilt of 
those who, under any pretext whatever, set aside its 
authority, and reject its claims. 

It is no doubt a serious fault, and a great stumbling- 
block to inquirers, when professed champions of re- 
vealed religion betray the tone of unscrupulous advo- 



56 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

cates, who are contending for victory alone. But it is 
no less unseemly, either for the inquirer or the believer, 
to affect the character of an unbiassed judge. Such a 
pretension betrays in itself a bias of the worst kind, 
because it involves a plain denial of one of the simplest 
truths of the Gospel. Christianity does not appeal to 
us as a culprit, to be cleared from a charge of imposture 
and mendicancy before the tribunal of our superior 
wisdom. We have to plead at the bar of Christ, not 
Christ at ours. He appeals to our reason ; but from 
above, not from beneath ; as a judge, a physician, a 
father, pleads with a culprit, a patient, or a child. For 
any of these parties to claim the character of an un- 
biassed judge, because their obedience requires some 
exercise of judgment on their own part, would be a 
ridiculous affectation. If the Gospel be true, no one to 
whom it is fully made known can reject it, unless from 
the strong bias of " an evil heart of unbelief;" and no 
one truly receives it, unless by the expulsive power of 
a new affection. They must have yielded to an in- 
fluence still more powerful than sensual appetite or the 
pride of false reason — the mighty attraction of the cross, 
and the constraining power of the love of Christ. 

An appeal to argument implies a natural capacity in 
those to whom it is made to apprehend the force of 
sound reasoning. But it does not imply a state of 
entire equilibrium and strict moral indifference. It 
would then have to be confined to some distant world, 
and could have no place in our intercourse with sinful 
men. Even among philosophers and metaphysicians, 
since their speculations began, there has never been a 
case of pure, abstract, colourless indifference to the 
truth or falsehood of Christianity. The words of Christ 
make no exception either for sceptics, philosophers, or 
divines — " He that is not for me is against me, and he 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 57 

that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." Neu- 
trality here is strictly impossible. It is quite consistent 
and reasonable, then, to set before the inquirer or the 
unbeliever the evidences of the Christian revelation; 
and still, when these are rejected after their full exhibi- 
tion, to ascribe that rejection to a moral obliquity, 
possibly quite unsuspected by themselves, and thus to 
refuse the flattering title of honest doubt to their culpable 
unbelief. This implies, it is true, that the sceptic, in 
many cases, is " no judge of his own mind ;" but it does 
not imply, on the part of the Christian advocate, any 
claim to omniscience and infallibility. It simply proves 
that he has more faith in the true sayings of Christ 
than in the self-knowledge of those who reject the 
messages of their Maker, and flatter themselves that the 
only reason is their scrupulous care to avoid imposture" 
and delusion. The disclaimer of all moral bias by the 
sceptic, who refuses to own the authority of Christ, 
however sincerely made, is only one ingredient in his 
unbelief. The Christian advocate who admits the claim, 
in order to acquire a reputation for superior candour, 
only shares in the guilt, since he disowns a truth which 
is clearly revealed in the word of God. 

A second charge, brought against many advocates of 
Christianity, is a neglect of the wide distinction between 
questions of external fact, and of internal, moral, and 
religious truth. They digress irregularly, it is said, 
from one subject into the other. They mingle a moral 
element with their treatment of the evidence for the 
facts of Christianity ; or when they urge the moral 
claims of the Christian faith, they include in their view 
of it the historical facts of the creed, along with ideas of 
the pure reason. 1 The fact must be allowed, that such 
a union and interchange of topics does continually occur. 

and Reviews, Ess. iii. pp. 97, 98. 



58 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

But the question remains, whether it is the advocates of 
Christian faith, or their critic and censor, who betrays a 
grievous blindness to the lessons of daily experience, of 
sound philosophy, and of Christian truth. 

Let us begin with the simple analogy which is sug- 
gested by the very form of the objection. The Christian 
religion has external facts and internal principles : it 
has a body and a soul. Is it a great error to treat them 
as if joined together in closest union? Christianity 
must be slain, before we can turn it into a disembodied 
spirit. Is it a fault in the psychologist, who treats of 
the human mind, to spend chapters on the five senses, 
on touch and taste, hearing, sight, and smell; all of 
which involve a direct reference to the body, and are 
inseparable from it ? Is it a fault in the physician, who 
prescribes for a dangerous fever, to direct that the mind 
of the patient should be kept free, if possible, from 
causes of excitement, that would aggravate the disease, 
and make it more dangerous Q Is it confusion of thought, 
when a treatise on the preservation of bodily health is 
connected with moral lessons on the benefit of chastity 
and temperance ? ■ Or is it a culpable irregularity, when 
the connection is traced, either by the physician or the 
moralist, between the indulgence of vice and exposure 
to fatal disease ? If not, then analogy alone refutes the 
objection so hastily and superficially brought against the 
advocates of revelation. 

Let us examine the subject, next, by the fight of 
reason. Is it unreasonable to introduce a moral element 
at all in discussing the external evidences of Chris- 
tianity ? To justify this view, three assumptions must 
be made : that there are no moral obstacles to be over- 
come in those to whom these evidences are addressed ; 
that no moral feature enters into the miracles of Christ 
and his Apostles, or into the predictions of the Bible, 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 59 

and adds immensely to their force as evidence ; and 
finally, that there is no moral aim in the message itself, 
to which the outward evidence is entirely subordinate. 
Unless all these assumptions were true, the objection 
is clearly baseless and unreasonable. But every one of 
them is exactly the reverse of the truth. The only 
wonder is how any one, with the lowest pretensions to 
the faculty of reasoning, could impute a fault to a 
number of able and thoughtful writers, which implies 
his own neglect of the simplest analogies of daily life, 
and of the most prominent feature in the miracles of 
the Gospel. 

There is still a third, and a higher test, which may 
be applied to this strange censure of so many Christian 
writers for yielding to a clear necessity of common 
sense and sound reason. We may appeal to an autho- 
rity which all Christians are bound to revere. How 
did Christ and his Apostles treat the external evi- 
dences and the moral elements of the message they de- 
livered to mankind ? Did they part them from each 
other by a wall of separation ? Did they jealously avoid 
any mixture of a moral element in their statement of 
the outward facts of the Gospel, or any mention of the 
outward facts in their moral appeals to the conscience ? 
Plainly and notoriously, their conduct was just the 
reverse. Far from being at pains to separate these two 
elements, as the objection prescribes, they labour to unite 
them closely together. Their intermarriage is a feature 
conspicuous on almost every page both of the Old and 
New Testament. There is scarcely a fact announced, 
but some great moral truth beams out from beneath it, 
and lights it up with a deeper significance. There is 
scarcely a precept or a promise, a doctrinal statement, 
or an utterance of devotion, but some historical allusion 
is mingled with it, so as to give it a firmer hold on the 



60 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

affections, and translate it from a mere abstraction into a 
living reality of Divine providence. The Sermon on the 
Mount, for example, abounds in every part with distinct 
and specific historical allusions. Its usual title is bor- 
rowed from the place where it was uttered, a mountain 
in Galilee. It was addressed to the disciples, and to 
multitudes " from Judea, Decapolis, Tyre, and Sidon." 
It refers to all the persecutions of the prophets 
under the Old Testament, to the giving of the law by 
Moses, and a variety of precepts therein contained, to 
the daily facts of providence, the sunshine and the rain 
from heaven, to the taxgatherers of Palestine, to the 
long and pretentious prayers of the Pharisees, to the 
birds of heaven -and the lilies of the field, to the 
natural habits of the dogs and the swine, to the whole 
range of earlier revelations in the Law and the Pro- 
phets, to the number of the unbelieving and profane, 
and the fewness of the faithful, to trees and their fruits, 
to outward miracles wrought by false disciples, to the 
wonder of the people at our Lord's teaching, and its 
contrast with the teaching of the Jewish scribes. All 
these are external elements, united inseparably with 
one of the purest and simplest exhibitions of moral and 
spiritual truth. 

The union, then, of external facts with moral elements, 
in writing on the Christian evidences, is justified by 
the clearest analogies, by sound reason, and by examples 
which every Christian is bound to revere. The only 
ground of surprise is how any one, claiming the cha- 
racter of a philosopher or a Christian, can make a charge 
against the judgment of others, which implies his own 
rejection of the plainest lessons of natural reason and 
of Christian faith. 

The objection brought against many advocates of 
revelation, that they counsel an evasion of difficulties 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 61 

rather than an attempt at their solution, and a willing- 
ness to rest on probable evidence alone, with a certain 
subrnissiveness of the conscience and will, is less easy 
to answer ; and there are cases in which it has a foun- 
dation in justice and truth. It is clear that, in subjects 
of this kind, a willingness to be taught, and the absence 
of a settled purpose to find excuses for unbelief, is a 
moral prerequisite for the acceptance of the message 
of the Gospel. It is also certain that, where strict de- 
monstration is not attainable, we are bound to act upon 
mere probability ; and that, whenever there is a desire 
to multiply difficulties, occasions for cavil and objection 
will never cease to be found. They are like the heads 
of the fabled hydra, and when one is cut off, a dozen 
more will appear in its stead. But still it cannot be 
denied that some professed antidotes of sce|Dticism are 
not unlikely to aggravate the disease they seek to cure, 
by seeming to transfer their advocacy of revelation 
from the ground of definite and intelligible reason to a 
vague, undefined religious sentiment. Men are urged 
to believe, — simply . because unbelief leaves a painful 
vacuum in the heart, — with a faith arising from ■ no 
calm conviction of the judgment, but from a mere effort 
and determination of the will. A faith so produced 
can scarcely be genuine. It does not meet difficulties 
in the face, but merely shuts its eyes, and endeavours 
not to see them. The effect of such a tone in the ad- 
vocates of Christianity on the minds of thoughtful, but 
perplexed inquirers, can hardly fail to be pernicious. 
Advice to cast off sceptical doubts and suggestions by a 
mere effort of will may sometimes only aggravate the 
disease which it attempts to cure. 

On the other hand, no sounder advice can be given 
to those whose faith is unfixed, but who profess a 
sincere desire after religious truth, than to fix their 



62 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

thoughts, first of all, on the direct and central evidences 
of Christianity. They do well to delay any attempt at 
solving particular difficulties, or settling knotty ques- 
tions as to the correctness of the Scripture canon, the 
mode and degree of inspiration, the seeming discre- 
pancies of the Gospels, or the propriety of New Testa- 
ment quotations ; until they have come to a clear and 
firm decision on the main subject, whether Christ is 
indeed a teacher come from God, and the Bible, at 
least in substance, a record of real messages from the 
God of heaven. There is no difficulty in detail, for 
which the humble and thoughtful Christian may not 
expect to find a solution, partly even in this life, and 
wholly in the life to come. But in the pursuit of Divine 
knowledge, just as in natural science, there is an order 
and discipline which must be observed, and the neglect 
of which may be punished with total failure. A 
student would vainly strive to master the Principia of 
Newton, or the Mecanique Celeste, who has not first 
stooped to learn Euclid, and the Elements of the Diffe- 
rential Calculus. Even when these elements have been 
mastered, the ascent must be gradual, or real knowledge 
will elude the grasp, and demonstrations that bring 
delight and conviction to the well-prepared student, 
become a heap of incomprehensible verbiage to those 
who strive to enter into their meaning without sub- 
mitting to the needful preparation. The case of Chris- 
tian inquirers is exactly similar. A humble and patient 
spirit brings the key which will unlock, by degrees, a 
thousand mysteries, and solve a thousand enigmas in 
the word of God, or in the course of Providence. But 
pride and impatience are like a picklock, and the wards 
are so constructed, by Divine art, as to resist and defeat 
all unlawful violence. Even those who bring the key 
with them must often be content to wait; and the 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 63 

solution of each particular doubt or difficulty may 
depend on the previous solution of others, which come 
earlier in the pathway of truth. The ways of heavenly 
wisdom " are all plain to him that understandeth, and 
right unto them that find knowledge." But, however 
obnoxious the truth may be to the pride of philosophy, 
without a moral preparation, without a humble and 
teachable spirit, mere intellectual cleverness is here of 
little avail. The death-knell of its presumptuous hopes 
may be heard in that solemn utterance of the Son of 
God ; " I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise 
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even 
so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." 

From these preliminary objections let us turn to the 
two main topics, which have been involved in no little 
mist — the credibility of miracles in themselves, and 
their sufficiency and limits as real proofs and tests of a 
Divine revelation. 

II. The difficulties respecting miracles in general, 
or suspensions of natural law, have assumed, it is said, 
a much deeper importance in our own time. The 
credibility of alleged events, and the value of testimony, 
must be estimated by a reference to the fixed laws of 
belief, and our convictions of established order and 
analogy. In appreciating the evidence for any events 
of a wonderful kind, our prepossessions have an enor- 
mous influence. We look at them through the medium 
of our prejudices. The more remarkable any occurrence, 
the more unprepared we are to view it calmly. Dis- 
belief of an event by no means implies a denial of the 
honesty or veracity of the impression on the minds of 
its witnesses. It means merely that the probability 
of some mistake, somewhere, is greater than that of the 
event happening in the way or from the causes assigned. 



64 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

What is alleged is a case of the supernatural ; and no 
testimony reaches to the supernatural, but only to 
apparent sensible facts. That these are due to super- 
natural causes depends on the previous belief or assump- 
tion of the parties who observe them. If any^ strange, 
unaccountable fact were observed at the present day, an 
unbiassed, educated person would not doubt for a 
moment, if a physical student, that it was due to some 
natural cause, and might at some future time be ex- 
plained by the advance of discovery. Miracles, there- 
fore, are now discredited, and have become really 
incredible. This result has arisen from growing study 
of the phenomena of the natural world. The inductive 
philosophy is based on one grand truth, the universal 
order and constancy of natural causes. This is a pri- 
mary law of belief, so firmly fixed in the mind of every 
truly inductive inquirer, that he cannot even conceive 
the possibility of its failure. An opposite view can 
arise only from want of power to grasp the positive 
scientific idea of the order of nature. Its boundaries 
exist only where our present knowledge places them ; 
to-morrow's discoveries will enlarge them. The pro- 
gress of research will unravel what seems now most 
marvellous, and what is now least understood will here- 
after be familiarly known. 

" A miracle," it is continued, " means something at 
variance with nature and law. There is no analogy 
between it and a mere unknown phenomenon, or an 
exceptional case of a known law included in a larger, 
still unknown. Arbitrary interposition is wholly dif- 
ferent in kind. Imagined suspensions of the vast series 
of dependant causation are now inconceivable, from our 
enlarged critical and inductive study of the natural 
world. These are the principles we should apply to 
marvellous events in common history and at the present 



THE REASONABLENESS OE MIRACLES. 65 

day. But the attempt to claim an exceptional character 
for the Gospel records forfeits or tampers with their his- 
torical reality. Those who would shield them from the 
criticism, to which all history and fact are amenable, force 
upon us the alternative of a mythical interpretation." 

An appeal here to the Divine Omnipotence, it is said, 
is out of place. " That doctrine is an inference from the 
language of the Bible, and is founded on the assumption 
of our belief in revelation. And besides, it admits of 
being applied in an opposite way. Our ideas of Divine 
perfection tend to discredit the notion of occasional 
interference. It is derogatory to Infinite Power and 
Wisdom to suppose an order of things so imperfect that 
it must be interrupted and violated to provide for the 
emergency of a revelation. All such reasonings, if 
pushed to their limits, must lead to a denial of all active 
operation of the Deity, as inconsistent with unchange- 
able and infinite perfection. 1 " 

Such is the philosophical objection against the mi- 
racles of the Law and the Grospel in its more recent and 
popular form. In the eyes of the thoughtful Christian, 
it lies open at once to a prima facie suspicion of entire 
falsehood, of the most formidable and decisive kind. It 
agrees punctually with an apostle's definition, eighteen 
centuries ago, of the form of presumptuous unbelief 
that would mark the last days of the Church of Christ, 
and ripen scoffers for the severest strokes of Divine 
judgment. He even requires us to place this truth very 
early in our list of Christian lessons, to be treasured 
up for our own guidance. " Knowing this^rs^, that 
there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after 
their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of 
his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things 
continue as they were from the beginning of the crea- 

1 Essays and Eeviews, Ess. iii. pp. 107-114. 

F 



66 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

tion. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by 
the word of Grod the heavens were of old." The theory, 
as thus described to us long ago, has by no means an 
attractive genealogy. It is born, according to the 
apostle, from wilful ignorance of the Creator ; its twin 
children are sensuality and scoffing ; and its final issue 
is a solemn and terrible judgment. 

Let us inquire, however, apart from the testimony of 
apostles, what claim this doctrine has to be received on 
the ground of philosophy alone. It is made up of mere 
assumptions, and even self-contradictions, of the most 
unphilosophical kind. It involves a false view of induc- 
tion, a false conception of the order of nature and the 
constancy of its laws, a false definition of miracles, and 
a denial of special features which plainly attach to every 
real or supposed message of religious truth, immediately 
conveyed from God to man. 

First, the view of induction which this objection 
implies is unphilosophical and untrue. Inductive re- 
search and mathematical deduction are different, and 
even contrasted, both in their processes and results. 
The deduction of pure science is the development of 
truths, or results of an hypothesis, which are necessarily 
true, or the contrary of which involves a self-contradic- 
tion. Such are the truths that the three angles of a 
triangle are equal to two right angles, or the rectangles 
of the segments of intersecting chords equal, or that 
every prime number of the form 4^ + 1 is the sum of 
two squares. But induction ascends from observed 
facts to generalizations of fact, or actual laws. It 
includes three stages ; the accumulation of observed 
phenomena ; the. development of some hypothesis for 
their explanation ; and the correction or confirmation of 
the hypothesis, by collating its results with the whole 
series of observations. The middle step is here borrowed 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIEACLES. 67 

from pure or deductive reasoning, but the two others 
are of an opposite kind. The observations are known 
to be true, simply by testimony, or the evidence of our 
senses ; and contrary or different facts are equally con- 
ceivable. The law obtained, being merely the sum 
and integration of the separate phenomena, shares in 
the same character. It is true, but not necessary. 
We believe it on the joint evidence of testimony to 
certain facts, and of deductive reasoning from a pro- 
posed hypothesis ; but the result cannot rise higher in 
certainty than the weaker of its two components. It 
is credible on the ground of repeated or multiplied 
testimonies to the facts which agree with it. But the 
deviation of other facts from it is equally conceivable, 
# equally credible upon due evidence, and our faith in 
the law would receive at once a new limitation. In 
short, all such laws are provisional, not necessary 
truths, a summation of facts which might have been 
different. We can easily believe, on credible testimony, 
of their apparent suspension or reversal, in particular 
cases, either by the intersection of some higher law, or 
by some directly spiritual and supernatural agency. 
We can even conceive, without much difficulty, of their 
total replacement by other laws entirely different. 

It is thus a wholly false view of the nature of in- 
ductive science, that it is occupied with the inves- 
tigation and discovery of laws which are necessary and 
unalterable. The exact reverse is the truth. Deduc- 
tive science alone is occupied with the development of 
necessary truth ; but applied or inductive science deals 
with phenomena, and through these with laws, of which 
the essential feature is that they are not necessary, 
however real, and that they repose on the basis of 
multiplied testimonies ; so that deviations from them, 
and even their reversal, are quite conceivable, and 

f 2 



68 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

would demand our faith, if sustained by due evidence, 
on the very same principle on which the laws them- 
selves are believed to exist. 

Again, the objection involves a total misconception 
of the order of nature, and the constancy of natural 
laws. It is true that the progress of physical science 
enables us, in these days, to refer many phenomena to 
some law or property of matter, which were once in- 
explicable. We cannot doubt, also, that further ad- 
vances in the same direction will still be made. Other 
laws, hardly less wide than that of gravitation, may be 
discovered ; and many things now mysterious, like the 
phenomena of comets, and the subtle and delicate 
movements of light and electricity, will be more clearly 
understood, and greatly enlarge the field of human 
knowledge. But this movement by which the horizon 
of science perpetually recedes and enlarges, instead of 
proving the inflexible constancy of natural laws, in the 
sense which the objection requires, proves exactly the 
reverse. It transfers the certainty from the physical 
laws of nature, as now defined by our present know- 
ledge, to the scheme of universal Providence, as it lies 
open to the view of Omniscience ; and thus resolves 
itself into a philosophical rendering of the great doctrine 
of the Bible, that " known unto God are all his works 
from the beginning of the world," and that, in the 
counsels of Infinite Wisdom, there is "no variableness, 
nor the shadow of turning." Our own experience 
reveals the constant action of the human will upon the 
human body, and upon all portions of matter that lie 
within the range of the muscular strength and physical 
powers of man. These are small, indeed, compared 
with the forces ever at work in the great cosmical sys- 
tem — but still their action, through successive ages, 
has wrought sensible effects even on the physical con- 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 69 

dition of whole regions of the earth. We should count 
it absurd to speak of mere physical laws deciding the 
movements of the ball, the marble, or the orange, when 
once placed within the grasp of a human hand. Once 
let us conceive of spiritual beings, whose power over 
matter bears the same proportion to ours as the orange 
to the mass of the earth, and the seeming immutability 
of physical laws, even in the case of the planetary 
movements, would equally disappear. It would resolve 
itself at once into some higher law of the spiritual 
world. But we can have no proof, from reason alone, 
that no such creatures exist in the universe. Our proof 
is limited to the fact that for a certain number of years, 
as far as human testimony can reach, though the will 
of man interferes ceaselessly with all the products of 
nature on the surface of our own planet, there has 
been uo such gigantic interference with the regularity 
of the celestial motions. But this contrast between 
the vastness of the starry world, and the narrow range 
of human volition, however conspicuous in fact, has no 
semblance whatever of being a necessary truth. We 
have no proof whatever, on grounds of pure reason, 
that the constancy, for thousands of years, of the 
planetary courses, undisturbed by spiritual agencies 
immensely more potent than the human will, is more 
than a counterpart, on a larger scale, to the quiet and 
silent growth of the corn in the harvest field, until the 
hour when the husbandman " puts in his sickle, because 
the harvest is come." 

Thirdly, the objection involves also a false definition 
of miracles themselves. They are defined to be " some- 
thing at variance with nature and law," suspensions of 
a known law, arbitrary interpositions, and events " iso- 
lated and uncaused." But none of these descriptions 
are correct. They are not, in the view of the Bible or 



70 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

of Christians, mere arbitrary interferences ; but are acts 
of Divine power, exerted for a special purpose, in har- 
mony with a scheme of moral government, to which 
all physical laws whatever are subordinate. They 
obey a moral and spiritual law of the Divine wisdom, 
higher and nobler, but possibly no less clear and 
definite in its own sphere, than the law of gravitation 
itself. They are suspensions of known law, just as 
the law that bodies fall towards the earth is suspended, 
when wood floats in water, or a balloon mounts towards 
the sky ; or the law that a bell is sonorous is inter- 
cepted, and suspended, when it is rung in an exhausted 
receiver. The difference is not in the principle, but 
in the special cause of the suspension. In one case 
a lower physical law is intersected and reversed by 
another law, equally physical, but more extensive. In 
the other, the same law is suspended and reversed by 
some spiritual agency, or a. direct act and purpose of 
the Supreme Will. 

The objection denies, further, that any special fea- 
tures of the Christian records will justify our departure 
from the general incredulity, with which the ascription 
of a miraculous character to any strange event would 
be regarded in the present age of scientific attainment. 
To regard them as an exceptional case, it is alleged, 
transfers them from the domain of genuine history to 
that of mere legend. But it is hard to understand by 
what obliquity of judgment an assertion so preposterous 
could be made. The exact reverse is self-evidently 
true. A professed message from God, which barely 
affirmed its own Divine origin, and was accompanied 
by no credentials worthy of its Author, such as the 
signs and wonders of the Law and the Gospel supply, 
would be open, without defence, to the charge of being 
a mere dream of the imagination, and might be trans- 



TEE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 71 

ferred at once from the region of fact and real history 
to that of mere legend. Miracles answer here to the 
crucial tests of the inductive philosophy, and form the 
contrast between a tissue of mere human fancies, and 
authentic messages from heaven, sealed with the royal 
signet of the King of kings. 

Besides these errors, there is a deeper charge of self- 
contradiction, which lies against the whole tenor of 
this sceptical argument. Writers of this school, the 
disciples of the Positive Philosophy, when they would 
free physical science from the intrusion of metaphysics 
and religious faith, insist on the doctrine that our task, 
as students of nature, is confined to the discovery of 
laws, the mere generalization of classes of phenomena, 
and that causes lie completely beyond our reach ; that 
their existence is doubtful, and their nature incon- 
ceivable. We know a series of events, of antecedents 
and consequents ; but of secret links, named causes, 
which have been supposed to bind them together, we 
know, and can know, nothing. On this basis is raised 
a theory of negative Atheism, that God may possibly 
exist, but that his existence must for ever be uncertain, 
and is also needless for all the wants of human science. 
But when the miracles of the gospel are to be set aside, 
and the supernatural banished from the thoughts of men, 
this reasoning is suddenly and completely reversed. 
These laws of nature, which before were nothing else 
than a summation of observed facts, are transformed 
into real causes, inflexible and unalterable as the fate 
of the old heathens, which admit neither God, nor 
angel, nor man, to interfere with their absolute and 
supreme dominion. What contradiction can be more 
gross and intolerable? The heathen, who cut down 
the cypress or the oak of the forest, hewed and squared 
it into decent shape, and, after using part to cook his 



72 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

food, turned the rest into an idol, and bowed down 
before it, was only a type of the more pretentions, but 
not less foolish course of this unbelieving philosophy. 
Its disciples hew and carve the phenomena of nature, 
and turn the chips and parings, the secondary laws of 
art and of applied science, into passive instruments that 
minister to the comfort of human life. All the rest of 
those laws, though equally perishable in themselves, 
being a little more firm and massive in appearance, 
they invest with the attributes of Divinity. These 
are fixed, unalterable, eternal, incapable of being 
varied by the will of man, or by the power of the 
living God. The worship of such speculators, so far 
as they worship at all, is paid to this system of 
physical law, and to that alone. They fall down 
before it, like the old heathen before his wooden idol 
or molten image, and say, " Deliver me, for thou art 
my god." And there is little doubt, if one of the 
old prophets were to rise again, that he would pro- 
nounce over them once more that indignant sentence, 
" They have not known nor understood ; for He hath 
shut their eyes, that they cannot see, and their hearts, 
that they cannot understand." 

III. The third class of objections refer to the suffi- 
ciency of miracles as the proofs and tests of a Divine 
revelation. And here it is urged that their force must 
be only relative, and depend on the knowledge or 
ignorance of those to whom they appeal. The miracle 
of an ignorant age ceases to be such in an age of greater 
light. Columbus's prediction of an eclipse was super- 
natural to the islanders of the Antilles. Some have, 
therefore, applied to them the Grreek proverb, that they 
are "marvels for fools," and supposed it equivalent 
with the rebuke of the evil generation, who sought 
after a sign. Schleierrnacher held them to be only 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 73 

relative to the notions of the age. The Pharisees 
ascribed them to evil spirits, and the later Jews to a 
theft of the ineffable name. Signs may thus be suited 
to one age or one class, and not to others. Miracles, 
which would now be incredible, were not so in the age 
when they are said to have occurred. Evidence, which 
might be convincing and powerful to an age of ig- 
norance, may have only an injurious influence when 
urged in these days, with whose scientific conceptions 
it is at variance. Where there is an indiscriminate 
belief of the supernatural, or where it is wholly dis- 
believed, the allegation of particular miracles will be 
equally in vain. Some recent writers have held that 
revelation ought to be received, though destitute of 
strict evidence either internal or external. Others 
have strongly denied that historical testimonies can 
be justly styled the evidences of Christianity. When- 
ever, instead of miracles being the sole certificate of the 
message, the force of evidence is made to lie in their 
union with the internal excellence of the doctrine, the 
latter becomes the real test for the admission of the 
former. Such a principle appears in the Bible itself, 
since false prophets might predict signs and wonders, 
which might also come to pass ; and false Christs and 
false prophets, under the Grospel, by similar miracles, 
almost deceive the very elect. What is the value of 
faith at second hand ? Many Christian writers have 
held a right of appeal, superior to all miracles, to our 
own moral tribunal, as De Wette, Doderlein, and 
others. Thus all outward attestation would seem super- 
fluous, if it concur with these moral convictions, or to be 
rejected if it oppose them. And hence the general con- 
clusion is reached, that " the more knowledge advances, 
the more Christianity, as a real religion, must be viewed 
apart from connection with physical things." 



74 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

There are here two important questions, much con- 
troverted even among Christian divines, which need 
some patient thought, before they can receive a dis- 
tinct answer. How far is the evidence of miracles 
real and absolute, or only relative to the ignorance 
of those who witness them ? What is the connection, 
also, between external and internal evidence ? Do 
miracles, apart from every moral test, form a com- 
plete attestation of a Divine message ? Or do they 
need rather to be joined with some moral evidence, 
before they can be received as decisive ? Christian 
writers, as Wardlaw and Trench, have given opposite 
replies to these questions. It becomes the more need- 
ful to use caution in seeking to answer them. The 
truth, if once clearly defined and explained, will per- 
haps spare the necessity for sifting the divergent state- 
ments of Christian apologists. It will then be need- 
less to pursue the sceptical argument in detail through 
the pages of an Essay, which pretends to throw new 
light on the study of the evidences, and seems only 
to wrap the subject in mist and confusion, that it may 
securely undermine the old foundations of the Christian 
faith. 

The reply to the first of these questions must plainly 
depend on the true definition of a miracle. If it be 
simply the suspension or reversal of the known laws 
of nature, then it must clearly be relative to our vary- 
ing knowledge of those laws ; and events miraculous in 
one age, or to one class, may cease to be so in a later 
age, or among better instructed men. If it be a direct 
act of Glod, in contrast to all agency of second causes, 
by an exercise of power strictly and exclusively 
Divine, then its nature is absolute and not relative, and 
must remain the same to all classes, and in every age of 
the world. 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 75 

The latter view has been adopted by many Christian 
writers in their works on the evidence of revelation. 
It seems to have the advantage of simplifying the 
argument; since miracles, thus defined, must plainly 
be a decisive proof that the message they accompany is 
Divine. But this seeming benefit is more than counter- 
balanced by the loss. On such a view, it must be 
impossible to know when a miracle has been wrought, 
unless we could know all the possible results of second 
causes, in their most unusual combination, or define the 
limits of that power which may belong to a superhuman, 
but created intelligence. Now this is a knowledge which 
no one has ever attained, even with our actual ad- 
vances in science, and amidst all the light of revelation. 
How much less can it be the condition, on which the 
evidence ,for the truth of that revelation is made to 
depend ! JSTo definition of miracles can leave them 
available as the proper tests of a Divine message, which 
requires a knowledge, both of God and of nature, quite 
beyond the attainments of those to whom the message 
is given. 

The following view is free from this fatal objection. 
Miracles, as evidence, may be immediate, mediate, or 
improper. Immediate miracles are those which satisfy 
the last definition, or distinct and immediate actings of 
the Great First Cause, apart from all second causes 
whatever. The resurrection of our Lord is an instance 
which seems clearly to belong to this first and highest 
category. Mediate miracles are those wrought by some 
unusual and supernatural power bestowed on a Divine 
messenger. The miracles of our Lord himself, as the 
Son of Man, may be correctly referred to this class, and 
still more undeniably those of his Apostles. They were 
not immediate acts of the Divine power alone, but are 
distinctly ascribed to a gift imparted to them as God's 



76 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

messengers. " He gave them power over unclean 
spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of 
sickness and of disease." " Behold, I give unto you 
power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and on all the 
power of the enemy." A deputed and real power, then, 
cannot be denied, without contradicting Scripture, and 
the adoption of a line of reasoning which would destroy 
the distinction between miracles and common events, 
resolving all alike into the ceaseless operation of the 
First Cause alone. Improper miracles are those which 
result from rare and unusual combinations of second 
causes. In these foresight, and not power, is the really 
supernatural element. The plague of the locusts, the 
feeding with quails, and even the destruction of the 
cities of the plain, may probably be referred to this 
class. In each case second causes, already in being, 
were clearly employed ; and it is not certain that more 
was needed than a pre-arrangement, by Divine wisdom, 
of special conditions for their combined action. The 
effect on those who saw the events would be equally 
miraculous, and create a full persuasion of the presence 
of the mighty hand of God. 

These three kinds of miracles, however distinct in 
their definition, it may be impossible in many cases to 
distinguish from each other. Their value, as evidence, 
cannot then depend upon such a discrimination having 
been previously made. We need a practical definition 
which shall include them all, and bring into relief that 
common feature on which their strength as evidence for 
a Divine revelation depends. 

Miracles, then, viewed as evidences for revelation, are 
" unusual events not within the ordinary power of man, 
nor capable of being foreseen by man's actual know- 
ledge of second causes, and wrought or announced by 
professed messengers of Glod, to confirm the reality of 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 77 

their message." The definition has a negative and a 
positive element. There must be no second causes, or 
at least none within human knowledge, that will ac- 
count for the event ; and there must be an apparent 
connection with some plain moral object or some pro- 
fessed message from God. Whenever these two con- 
ditions meet, we have a case of miraculous evidence. 
Some of these, by the progress of science in later 
times, might come within the range of man's actual 
power over nature, or his insight into natural changes, 
and would then cease to be miraculous ; while others 
may surpass not only human, but superhuman power, and 
imply a direct exercise of the Divine Omnipotence. 

The use of miracles as evidence, like the need itself 
for supernatural revelation, depends on the doctrine of 
the Fall. It results from the dimness and blindness of 
the heart of man in all spiritual things. In a perfect 
state, all second causes would be referred instinctively 
to the will of God, and all nature be translucent with 
the Maker's presence. Miracles, in their strangeness 
and peculiarity, would cease to exist. All we behold 
would be miracle. Even the direct converse of the 
Word of God with his sinless creatures would only be 
the crown and topstone of one harmonious system of 
communion among men and angels, and all the holy 
creatures of God. But when, through the power of 
sin, creation has grown opaque to the eyes of men, and 
the physical course of nature conceals the presence 
of the great Lawgiver, miracles are needed, to form an 
antidote to blind nature-worship, and undo the subtle 
spell of unbelief. This end may be secured, either by 
acts of Divine power, suspending or reversing the laws 
of nature ; or else by combining these in such an un- 
usual way, and with so clear a moral purpose, as to 
force the conviction on reluctant minds that nature is 



78 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

only a servant and handmaid of the living God, the 
moral Governor of the universe. 

The evidence, then, of miracles, in the widest sense 
of the term, may in some cases be only relative to 
the knowledge of those who witness them. Still there 
are few, if any, of those recorded in the Bible, which 
lie so near to this inferior limit as to be really affected 
in their evidential power by the discoveries of modern 
science, and the increase of man's power over the 
works of God. Even supposing some of the plagues 
of Egypt to have been effected simply by a pre- 
adjustment of second causes ; no reach of science, even 
now, could enable the wisest philosopher to rival Moses, 
and to predict the coming of the scourge and the time 
of its removal. Our chemistry, with its immense dis- 
coveries, leaves the miracle at Cana as purely miracu- 
lous as in the hour when it was wrought ; and the 
feeding of the five thousand remains until now, as 
clearly as ever, a work truly supernatural and divine. 

The evidence derived from miracles, to confirm the 
truth of revelation, needs thus no intrusion into the 
deep things of God, no exact discernment of limits 
which separate all created power and second causes 
from acts of Divine Omnipotence, in order to give it 
force and validity. It depends simply on the union of 
two conditions : that second causes, adequate to the 
result, either do not exist, or are hidden from view ; 
and that a moral cause, such as the exhibition of Divine 
power and holiness, or the confirmation of a Divine 
message, shall be plainly conspicuous. The words of 
the conscience-stricken magicians will then be ap- 
plicable : " This is the finger of God ;" and the rea- 
soning of our Lord will apply — " If I by the finger of 
God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is 
come upon you." 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 7U 

This leads to a second inquiry of equal importance. 
What is the relation between the external and internal 
evidence, between the miracles which attest a message, 
and the moral features of the alleged revelation ? The 
path of truth seems here, as in many other cases, to lie 
almost midway between opposite extremes. 

First, it is not the doctrine of Scripture that miracles 
alone, simply as miracles, are decisive proofs that any 
message or teaching they accompany is from God. The 
marvels of the Egyptian sorcerers who withstood Moses, 
the caution in the law against teachers of idolatry, 
whose signs and wonders should come to pass, the 
account of our Lord's temptation, his own warning 
against false prophets, whose great signs and wonders 
might almost deceive the elect, and other passages in 
the Epistles and Book of Eevelation, conspire to teach 
an opposite lesson. It avails nothing to allege that 
wicked spirits can never attain to works properly 
Divine. Eevelation would be needless, if men were 
already so wise as to know the highest possible reach 
of all created power, and instinctively to discern it from 
the workings of real Omnipotence. Indeed we have no 
proof that most of the miracles in the Bible require a 
higher power than its own promises assure to saints 
and angels in the kingdom of God ; and the contrary 
may perhaps be implied, where miraculous gifts of the 
early Christians receive that impressive title — " the 
powers of the world to come." 

The opposite extreme, however, that the goodness of 
the message, discerned by the light within, is the real 
test of the admissibility of miracles, instead of miracles 
being the tests of the message itself, is still more remote 
from the truth. A conscience so enlightened before- 
hand as to decide at once on the wisdom or folly, the 
truth or falsehood, of every part of a message that 



80 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

claims God for its Author, can stand in no need of a 
direct revelation from heaven. The same moral blind- 
ness, which alone calls for the remedy of a supernatural 
message, unfits men entirely for the perilous task of 
sitting in judgment on the words of their Maker. To 
see truth in the light of God is not the state of those, to 
whom either the Law or the Gospel is first given. It 
is the best and highest attainment of those who have 
received in faith the words of their Maker, and been 
trained by them to the full enjoyment of his presence ; 
where faith is lost in sight, and provision for their 
journey through a land of moral pitfalls is exchanged 
for the gladness and glory of a heavenly inheritance. 

Miracles, of themselves, simply attest the presence 
and working of a superhuman power. They do not, 
without some further test, prove that this power is that 
of the true and only God. The Bible affirms the 
existence of spirits of evil, superior to men in natural 
power and wisdom, who must therefore be capable of 
working wonders, or predicting events, and revealing 
secrets, beyond the range of mere human ability. 
Some further element, then, is required beyond mere 
signs and wonders, though apparently supernatural, to 
prove the doctrine or message to be Divine. And this 
test may be twofold — the greatness of the miracles 
themselves, or the moral features of the message when 
viewed as a whole. The first is the simplest, the second 
the most decisive. Both of them rest alike on the 
voice of reason, and distinct examples in the word of 
God. The Divine Power must surpass the power of 
all spirits of evil ; and if they are permitted to work 
seeming wonders, it seems reasonable to expect that 
the Lord of heaven and earth will merely suffer it, so 
far as to illustrate more brightly his own supremacy 
and omnipotence. Again, though revelation would 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 81 

be useless, if men were able to pass judgment safely 
in detail on every part of a Divine message ; such a 
degree of moral discernment as would enable them, on 
the whole, to discern good from evil, the message of 
a holy and benevolent Deity from the lying voice of 
spirits of darkness, must surely belong to all mankind 
who have not reached the worst and lowest stage of 
judicial blindness. 

Now both of these tests, which alone are needed to 
make the evidence of miracles adequate and complete, 
are distinctly recognised in the Bible history itself. 
The magicians of Egypt, so far as the words of Scrip- 
ture are any guide, rivalled outwardly the signs of the 
first plagues and the previous wonders, with an infe- 
riority in degree alone. After this limit, their per- 
mitted power, or that of the false gods whose servants 
they were, failed them, and they were compelled to 
own, " This is the finger of God." Again, when a 
prophet spoke in the name of Jehovah, the success or 
failure of the signs he gave was declared to be the test 
of -his sincerity or falsehood in his claim to a Divine 
commission. But if a prophet or dreamer showed a 
sign or wonder to persuade the Israelites into idol- 
worship, even the success of the sign was to be no 
proof of his authority. On the contrary, it is declared 
to be merely permitted for the trial of their fidelity, 
and the teacher of falsehood and idolatry was to be put 
to death for his crime. 

The words of Nicodemus, in his secret interview with 
our Lord, are quite consistent with the same view. 
The conclusion rested, apparently, not on the mere 
fact of miracles, but on their number or their greatness. 
" No man can do these miracles which thou doest, ex- 
cept Grod be with him." Our Lord himself assigns the 
same reason for the guilt of the Jews in rejecting him. 

G 



82 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

It was not simply because miracles had been wrought, 
but greater miracles than by any of the prophets, and 
therefore in fullest harmony with the rank and cha- 
racter of the true Messiah. " If I had not done among 
them the works which no other man did, they had not 
had sin." The presence of miracles, then, simply and 
in itself, is not a completely decisive proof of a Divine 
message. They may, in rare cases, accompany the 
permitted delusions of spirits of darkness. But miracles, 
striking and impressive in themselves, and not con- 
fronted by others still more miraculous, or when joined 
with a general impress of holiness in the message they 
attest, do form a complete and decisive evidence that 
the teaching is from Grod, and the revelation truly 
Divine. 

Let us now sum up the general result of this 
inquiry. 

All science tends towards unity. But the true 
source of that unity cannot be found within the boun- 
daries of physical science alone. This vast ocean has 
its tides secretly controlled by a higher law than the 
currents and rippling of its own waves. The real unity 
consists in a scheme of moral government, guided and 
disposed in every part by the wisdom of the great 
Lawgiver, of which only a small part is disclosed to us 
in our present state. There is a partial unity in every 
compartment of nature, but this is limited by its subor- 
dination to a greater whole. Mechanical laws, which 
govern solid matter, are modified by the subtle influ- 
ences of heat and electricity. These higher laws, again, | 
are modified by vital action in all the forms of vege- 
table and animal life. All the lower forms of life upon 
earth, as well as all material objects, are controlled in 1 
various degrees by the reason and will of man. At 
this point in the ascent higher laws begin to appear, I 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 83 

not of mechanical agency or physical sequence, but of 
moral government. Ideas force themselves upon our 
notice, of right and wrong, duty and disobedience, of 
sin and holiness, of reward and punishment. Beyond 
these there emerges to the view of faith, when en- 
lightened by the word of God, and by its echoes and 
reflections in the purified conscience, the glorious vision 
of a scheme of creation, providence, and redemption, 
which spans eternity in its range, begins from the 
foundation of the world, stretches forward into the 
ages to come, includes all events, small and great, 
within its own capacious bosom ; and makes all the 
outward works of the Creator, from the stars of heaven 
to the cedar of Lebanon and the hyssop on the wall, 
subserve the mysterious counsels of Infinite Wisdom 
and Love. 

The knowledge which man has attained, in any age 
of the world, of the laws of nature, is like an islet in the 
midst of this vast, undiscovered ocean of the counsels of 
the Most High. It gives him a firm standing-place 
for the active duties of his daily life ; while its narrow 
limits teach him the duty of owning a Higher Power, 
and adoring with reverence at the footstool of his Al- 
mighty Creator. In a perfect moral state, this limited 
and imperfect knowledge would never be a veil to hide 
from his eyes the presence and dominion of the Unseen 
King. But sin has darkened the human conscience ; 
and ages of the world in which " many run to and fro, 
and knowledge is increased," may blind the eyes of men 
to the limitations of physical law, and its dependence 
on the higher purposes of God's moral government. 
They mistake this ocean islet — this narrow region of 
discovered physical laws, reared by the insect labours 
of thousands of men of science in successive generations 
— for that mightier world to which the islet itself, and 

g 2 



84 ■ THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

the ocean that girdles it, equally belong. It becomes 
needful, then, either by the unexpected interference of 
other physical laws still undiscovered and unknown, by 
signal and secret arrangements of Providence, or by 
the direct agency of spiritual messengers higher than 
men, to break through the thick crust of atheism which 
has begun to darken the conscience ; and to force on it 
anew the conviction, that man is a creature subject to 
the control of an All-wise Creator, and that higher laws , 
than the dull mechanism of unconscious matter, or the 
low instincts of animal life, enter into the mighty 
scheme of God's universal providence. This is the 
first and immediate effect of the repara or wonders, that 
herald and accompany the messages of God. 

But to arouse the attention, and disperse the atheistic 
blindness which worships dead nature is only their 
first effect. They are signs as well as wonders, or 
significant attendants of some message from heaven, 
some moral truth which they partly convey of them- 
selves, and partly confirm, as it flows from the lips of 
God's appointed messengers. The miracles of the Bible 
startle men from their apathy, but they also teach and 
signify some celestial truth. The flood, the destruction 
of the cities of the plain, were messages of solemn anger 
against abounding sin. The smitten rock, from whence 
the water flowed at Rephidirn, and the manna in the 
wilderness, were signs of a higher provision for the 
souls of men. The healing of the sick, the cleansing of 
lepers, the unstopping the ears of the deaf, the opening 
the eyes of the blind, the draught of fishes, the feeding 
of the multitudes, in our Lord's ministry, had all of 
them a deep moral significance. The little islet of 
known natural laws was invaded, its dull monotony was 
disturbed, and its tenants wakened up to wonder, 
curiosity, and eager inquiry, by a ship of heaven, laden 



THE REASONABLENESS OF MIRACLES. 85 

with good news from a far country. But the ship had 
a firmness of its own, not less complete in its kind than 
the islet it was sent to visit, and its treasures were the 
products of a continent, far more rich in its extent than 
the self-satisfied but ignorant islanders could ever have 
dreamed of, before it anchored on their distant shore. 

The miracles of revelation are that ship of heaven. 
They have a system and structure of their own, adapted 
wonderfully to convey heavenly truth to the dwellers 
of earth, although the visit breaks through their con- 
tented slumber within the narrow region of sensible 
things. They seem, then, in themselves, like infractions 
on the dominion and permanence of the lower laws of 
nature, already known to men. But in truth they 
convey to them the products of a nobler and higher 
world of thought, of which the laws are equally firm, 
and even firmer, than those which the miracles seem to 
reverse, and are larger, wider, deeper, and nobler, un- 
changeable and everlasting. That higher world is the 
vast scheme and counsel of redeeming love. Its foun- 
dations are the attributes of Him who is unchangeable. 
Its hills and valleys are the wide range of moral and 
spiritual truth. Its rich productions are all those 
various lessons of duty, laws of holiness, and instincts: 
of purity, wisdom, and grace, which will nourish and 
gladden the souls of the redeemed for ever. Physical 
laws may be firm, but the moral laws of the Divine 
government are still firmer. The pillars of earth may 
tremble and be astonished ; but no change can assail 
that city " which hath foundations, whose builder and 
maker is Grod." 



86 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 

The Bible differs from all other ancient books which 
have claimed a sacred origin, by its historical character. 
In this respect it stands alone. The Koran of Mo- 
hammed is simply a series of monologues ; only a few 
Scripture narratives rhetorically disguised, or Arabian 
legends, interrupt the wearisome monotony of its reli- 
gious appeals, invectives, and exhortations. The Hindu 
Vedas are equally unhistorical. Learned students, with 
their utmost efforts, can only just infer from them, 
indirectly, the age when they were written. The same 
feature appears in the Zendavesta, and the Egyptian 
sacred writings and Ritual of the Dead. All of these 
flit before us like ghosts or disembodied spirits, and the 
garment of historical fact or allusion with which they 
are clothed is of the most thin and shadowy kind. 

The Old and the New Testament agree in a common 
character, precisely the opposite to these pretended 
revelations. They include the history of a long and 
connected series of events, of great, public, and notorious 
acts of Divine Providence. In each of them, four- 
sevenths of the whole is simple narrative ; and the other 
books also, whether didactic, devotional, or prophetic, 
with hardly one exception, are fixed by clear internal 
marks to their own place in the history. This is the 
stem which supports them all, the Psalms, Proverbs, 
Canticles, and Prophets in the Old Testament, and the 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 87 

Epistles and Book of Eevelation in the New. The 
Bible narrative, so simple and unadorned in itself, 
seems here, like the rod of Aaron, to bud, and bring 
forth blossoms, and yield almonds. In these other books 
only a few chapters are direct history ; but still their 
connection with the historical portions is intimate, un- 
broken, and complete. 

This character of the Bible is most favourable to the 
detection of its falsehood, or to the establishment of its 
truth.' It multiplies greatly the tests which separate 
faithful testimony from the impostures of fraud and the 
mere illusions of fancy. Unreal history is too sandy 
a foundation, on which to rear, with the least hope of 
success, a temple of pure and everlasting truth. Sincere 
and honest narratives, though slightly discordant, or 
imperfect in a few minor details, might certainly be the 
means of conveying to us Divine messages of the highest 
worth and authority. But it is incredible that histories, 
legendary and deceptive in their broad outlines, which 
would be condemned in all other cases as dishonest 
or worthless, should be the stem upon which are 
found to grow the blossoms and richest fruitage of 
heavenly wisdom. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, 
nor figs of thistles. A pure morality and theology can 
never be the fruit of dishonest and deceptive history. 
Once let the conviction spread that whole books of the 
Bible, and main portions of its narratives, are gross, 
strange, and monstrous distortions of the real facts, or 
else mere legends containing no real facts whatever, and 
Christianity will have received a fatal death-wound in 
the minds of educated and thoughtful men. 

The Pentateuch and the Four Gospels are the his- 
torical basis, on which all the other Scriptures of the Old 
and of the New Testament entirely depend. Each has 
been exposed, of late years, to repeated and persevering 



88 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

charges of historical falsehood. Early forms of scepti- 
cism ripened at length, in Strauss's ' Leben Jesu,' into 
an attempt to dissolve the whole of the Gospels into a 
heap of fables, due entirely to the dreaming and in- 
ventive imagination of the early Christians. The cool 
andacity of the hypothesis, with the laborious minute- 
ness of its detailed criticisms, created a momentary sen- 
sation ; just as the tale of a lunatic may be so minute 
and particular in its various inventions, as to make us 
almost forget for a time how preposterous it is. ' But 
this tide-wave has gone by, though some traces of it may 
be left behind. The Gospels are too recent in their 
date, too intensely real in their tone, too fruitful in his- 
torical consequences, to make it 'possible for so wild a 
theory to gain more than a brief popularity among 
unbelievers themselves. The oscillation from naturalism 
into mythicism was followed inevitably by a backward 
movement into naturalism again. And indeed this 
uneasy alternation can never cease, until the eyes of the 
soul are opened, like those of the blind man in the Gospel, 
and it learns to bow the knee in reverence and worship 
before the Son of God. 

The attacks on the Pentateuch began earlier, and 
have been still more persevering. Scepticism had here 
many advantages which were entirely wanting in its 
assaults upon the Gospel history. The period itself is 
more remote by nearly two thousand years. The Law, 
being a revelation originally for the Jews alone, has 
a much weaker hold than the Gospel on the faith and 
sympathy of the great body of modern Christians. Till 
quite lately, there were few collateral sources of infor- 
mation to be found, either in ancient monuments or 
heathen records. The efforts of unbelieving criticism 
were thus confined mainly to a dissection of the books 
themselves. From the time of Astruc onward, a long 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 89 

series of writers have laboured to detect inconsisten- 
cies, to disprove the Mosaic authorship, and to transfer 
broken fragments of the Pentateuch to various legend- 
makers, or compilers of loose tradition, under the Jewish 
kings. More recently the progress of discovery in the 
remains of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Babylon, has 
supplied far more copious materials for comparison with 
the histories of the Old Testament. Its later books 
have gained singular and unexpected confirmation from 
results of Assyrian and Babylonian research. But the 
effect of Egyptian discovery, in the comparison of the 
monuments with the books of Moses, is more contro- 
verted and ambiguous. Here also many facts, usages, 
and details in the sacred narrative, are confirmed by 
the monuments in a striking manner. But Dn the main 
question of the general outline of the early history, some 
learned students, while differing by whole centuries 
and millennia in their own reckonings, agree to set 
aside the Book of Grenesis as legendary and unhistorical, 
that they may replace it by their own views of the im- 
mense antiquity of Egyptian civilization. An attempt 
has lately been made to bring these supposed disco- 
veries within the general reach of English readers in a 
popular form ; and thus to destroy their faith in the 
veracity of those books of Moses, which form the his- 
torical basement of the whole series of the Jewish and 
Christian revelations. 1 

It would be impossible, in a few pages, to enter into 
the details of an inquiry so immense and various. The 
Bible histories occupy seventeen books of the Old, and 
five of the New Testament, and spread over a space, at 
the lowest reckoning, of nearly four thousand years. 
Within this wide range, and with all the various 
materials amassed by modern research, hundreds, and 

1 Note C. The Bible and Ancient Egypt. 



90 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

almost thousands of questions may be raised, that would 
each require a chapter or small volume for their full 
discussion. Our knowledge of the earliest period is still 
so obscure, and the views both of those who reject the 
authority of the Pentateuch, and of those who maintain 
it, are so diverse, that a suspense of judgment on several 
important questions may be still the wisest course, even 
after the most careful use of all the existing evidence. 
But the way lies open by which, in spite of some 
questions still unsolved, and confident assertions by a 
few men of science, agreed in rejecting Moses, but at 
variance among themselves, we may come to a full 
assurance, in agreement with the plainest maxims of 
inductive philosophy, on the massive strength and so- 
lidity of the -historical foundations of the Christian faith. 

The great question which requires an answer is this : 
Have we any clear and full warrant for believing the 
veracity of the Bible historians, and the substantial 
truth of their narratives, however plainly intermingled 
with statements of supernatural events, and whatever 
minute discrepancies may seem, at first sight, to be 
detected by a rigid and searching inquiry ? And here 
two prefatory remarks seem desirable, before we pro- 
ceed to consider the direct evidence of their truth. 

First of all, the veracity of these writers is closely 
linked, in the general faith of Christians, with the 
doctrine of their special inspiration, and an implied 
belief of their freedom from all error in delivering the 
messages of Grod. This intimate union of two distinct 
ideas, however natural and desirable for the uses of 
practical piety, may become a snare and a source of 
perplexity in tracing out the reasonable grounds of our 
Christian faith. We may be charged with a circular 
and sophistical mode of reasoning ; as if we believe the 
Scriptures inspired and infallible because a few texts 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 91 

seem to affirm it, and reckon these texts decisive evi- 
dence, because all Scripture is true and inspired. 
Faith, however, in the exact limit and extent of 
the Scripture canon, and in a mode of inspiration 
so complete as to exclude the slightest error or dis- 
crepancy, is rather the crown and topstone, than the 
basis, of a reasonable belief in Christianity. It could 
not have been essential while the canon was unfinished, 
nor for centuries afterward, when several books were 
widely, but not universally received ; while in modern 
times a less rigid view of the effect of inspiration can 
claim many advocates of deep and earnest piety, and 
of general soundness in the faith. On the other hand, 
a conviction that the sacred writers, especially the 
Evangelists, are sincere, honest, and credible witnesses of 
the facts they record, seems a first essential of all real 
faith in Christianity. For surely no one can hold the 
Evangelists and Apostles to have been fraudulent his- 
torians and dishonest witnesses, and still receive the 
Gospel itself as a message truly Divine. 

There is here an important distinction between the 
doctrinal and prophetic books or passages of Scripture, 
and the historical books themselves. In the former 
there is generally a direct or virtual claim of Divine 
authority. Their character is totally changed when 
we view them as purely human. We must accept 
them as Divine, or own them to be an immoral ex- 
periment on the credulity of mankind. But the his- 
torical books, with the exception of prophetic passages 
or doctrinal discourses, require no such alternative. 
The claim to inspiration is not made by each historian 
on his own behalf. It is not plainly implied by the 
mere existence of the record. No one, without a 
special commission, can reveal heavenly truth, so as 
to claim with full authority the obedience of mankind. 
But every honest witness may give a true report of 



92 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT,* 

discourses he has heard, or events he has seen, or of 
which copious evidence has been placed within his 
reach, without special and supernatural inspiration. 
If St. Luke had not written, and the accounts to which 
his preface alludes had survived, they might have been 
disfigured by some mistakes and errors, and have 
obscured the due proportion of the events they con- 
tained ; but they would doubtless have agreed in the 
main with our present Grospels, and might have 
nourished for ages the spiritual life of the whole 
Church. Entire freedom from the least error, if 
proved by distinct evidence, is a superadded per- 
fection of the sacred narratives, which increases their 
practical value, and simplifies the acting of Christian 
faith ; but their honesty, as the work of upright wit- 
nesses, and careful and well-informed historians, is the 
first condition on which all reasonable faith in Chris- 
tianity must depend. 

The life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the bases 
of Christianity, are recorded by four distinct writers 
in the four Grospels. This agrees with the maxim of 
the law of Moses, and the lesson of common sense, 
that " in the mouth of two or three witnesses every 
word should be established." The plurality of the wit- 
nesses is thus made one chief element in the strength 
of their united testimony. Every view, then, of the 
inspiration of these books which sets aside or obscures 
the individuality of the four writers, and reduces them 
to fingers of the same hand, used mechanically by the 
Spirit of Grod, defeats one main purpose for which the 
message was conveyed to us in its actual form. No 
further truth respecting the special inspiration of the 
Evangelists ought to cloud from our view the fact, 
so conspicuous in itself, and so important in reference 
to the great object of the revelation, that we have 
the concurrence of four distinct and separate witnesses 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 93 

to all the main facts, and many details, of the Gospel 
history. 

Secondly, the veracity of the Bible has been often 
questioned and denied, on the simple ground that it 
contains miraculous events and prophecies. A whole 
series of German critics base their rejection of its 
histories, in their actual form, entirely on this prin- 
ciple, that the mention of a miracle is " evident proof 
of a later narrator, who was no eye-witness of the 
event." The great question is thus prejudged in the 
gross, before any attempt is made to confirm this 
general disbelief by detailed criticism. But such a 
'line of argument bears its condemnation on its face. 
For the claim of the Bible is plainly that it contains 
a series of messages from" God to man, attested by 
signs, wonders, and prophecies. To make the presence 
of these in the narrative a disproof of its reality is there- 
fore a flagrant contradiction of all common sense. Two 
demands alone can be reasonably made ; that the history, 
setting apart its miraculous character, shall possess all 
the other marks of honesty and truth ; and that the 
testimony to these miracles and prophecies, in its 
strength and clearness, shall correspond with their 
importance as public and solemn credentials of a reve- 
lation from God. 

Again, the improbability of miracles, which evidence 
has to overcome, depends entirely on their association 
with some great religious object, or their independent 
occurrence. In the former case they cannot be more 
unlikely than one or other of these affirmations : that 
there is a God ; that men stand in need of fuller light 
from their Maker ; and that a God of wisdom and love 
has made provision for this wide and deep want of man- 
kind. In the latter case, their occurrence is just as 
unlikely as the supposition, that an All-wise Governor 



94 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

will abrogate the laws lie has ordained, in mere caprice, 
and with no apparent motive whatever. Thus, in one 
case we have a high probability that they will, and in 
the other that they will not occur. The proposal to 
test the Bible, in this respect, by the rules applied to 
common histories, is therefore a logical absurdity of the 
most glaring kind. We have been told, for instance, 
that the outward evidences of Scripture are " not ade- 
quate to guarantee narratives inherently incredible," 
and that our investigation " forfeits its historical cha- 
racter " unless we scrutinize the Christian miracles " on 
the same grounds on which we should investigate any 
ordinary narrative of the supernatural or marvellous." 
This amounts, in fact, to an assertion that it is just as 
unlikely an All-wise Creator should work signs and 
wonders with the highest reason conceivable for such 
an exercise of his omnipotence, or out of mere caprice, 
with no reason whatever. 

The way is now open for a brief review of the direct 
evidence which attests the historical truth of the Old 
and New Testaments. We may distinguish six main 
periods ; from Creation to the Exodus, from the Exodus 
to the Temple, from thence to the Captivity, and from 
the Captivity to Christ : and, in the New Testament, 
from the Birth of our Lord to his Ascension, and from 
thence to the close of the history, or St. Paul's arrival 
at Rome. The earliest period is lost in the shades of 
remote antiquity, where, until of late, few outward 
materials for comparison could be found ; but the last 
answers to the palmiest days of the Roman Empire, and 
the most public and conspicuous era of classical history. 
The sacred history, however, from first to last, is re- 
corded on the same general scale, with a marked har- 
mony of character, style, and tone. The natural course 
is to ascend from the last period, where the means for 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 95 

testing its reality are most abundant, to the earlier ones, 
where they are of recent discovery, and still compara- 
tively uncertain and obscure. 

I. The Book of Acts is a whole, complete in itself, 
distinct in character from the Gospels, and not less 
distinct from the histories of the Old Testament. It 
abounds in testimonies to the resurrection and ascension 
of Christ, and to the fact of numerous miracles wrought 
during its course by the apostles to confirm their 
message. Apart from these features, has it all the 
marks of genuine history ? Does it satisfy the various 
tests by which an authentic record of facts may be 
discerned from the tales of imposture, from deliberate 
fiction, or from the dreams of excited fancy ? The 
evidence may clearly be of three kinds ; derived from 
its allusions to a real geography and the actual history 
of the times, from its coincidences with the rest of the 
New Testament, especially St. Paul's Epistles, and from 
the internal keeping and harmony of its own narrative. 
In each of these it is unusually full and copious, and 
space will not allow more than an enumeration in the 
briefest form. 

(1.) From the Ascension to the death of Herod 
Agrippa. 

The book opens with an allusion to a former treatise 
by the same author, containing the events of our Lord's 
ministry till his ascension. This treatise is still extant 
in our third Gospel, and agrees with the description, 
and also with several features of style in the later nar- 
rative. (Conf. Luke hi. 1-4 ; ii. 1-6 ; Acts v. 37 ; xi. 28 ; 
xviii. 12 ; xxiv. 27.) It alludes next to forty days from 
the resurrection to the ascension, followed by a few 
days of earnest and continued prayer, before the day of 
Pentecost. This is the usual name of the second Jewish 
festival in Philo, Josephus, and other Greek writers ; 



98 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and its meaning, the fiftieth day from the passover, 
corresponds with the double definition of the intervals 
of time. The disciples are called, in the first and 
second chapters, Galileans. This agrees both with 
the Gospel account of the chief scene of our Lord's 
ministry, and with the nickname of the Christians, 
as late as Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. Olivet is 
called " a sabbath day's journey from Jerusalem." 
This is confirmed by the known topography, and by 
Jewish authorities on the distance allowed to be 
travelled on the sabbath. Aceldama is said to be 
the name of the field of blood in " the proper dialect" 
of Jerusalem. This agrees with the local use of Syriac 
in Judea. Joseph, called Barsabas, was also surnamed 
Justus. This indicates the presence of the Romans in 
Palestine, leading to the occasional acquisition, by Jews 
themselves, of Latin surnames. The countries, from 
which Jews are said to have been present on the day 
of Pentecost, agree with the known state of intercourse 
in the Roman world, and with their wide dispersion 
through all those lands and provinces, as confirmed by 
Josephus and other testimonies. Mesopotamia and 
Judea come together ; for the grouping refers to 
dialects, and the Chaldee and the Syriac of Palestine 
were near akin to each other. Both Jews and prose- 
lytes are mentioned as numerous ; and the number of 
Gentile proselytes in that age is confirmed by all his- 
torians. In the sermon of St. Peter, the sepulchre of 
David is said to be among the Jews at Jerusalem to 
that day. It still occupies a leading place in plans, 
views, and descriptions of Mount Zion and its vicinity 
(Williams's Holy City, Front, and p. 417). The Beau- 
tiful Gate of the Temple and the porch of Solomon are 
named as places of especial resort. The latter is de- 
scribed by Josephus (Antiquities, xx. 9), and the former, 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 97 

though the Greek name does not seem to occur, answers, 
both in position and meaning, to the gate called Susan 
by the Jews from its beauty. The captain of the temple 
is named, in passing, along with the chief priests. The 
same officer is mentioned by Josephus (Ant., xx. 6, 2 ; 
B. J., ii. 12, 6 ; and vi. 5, 3), and under the kindred 
name of " overseer of the temple," in 2 Mac. hi. 4. 
The rivalry of the Sadducees and Pharisees, which 
runs through the history, and the special opposition 
of the former to the preaching of the resurrection, 
agrees fully with larger details in Josephus. Annas 
is named as high priest, and Caiaphas is associated with 
him. The former, under the name Ananus, is noted by 
Josephus, as " most fortunate, for he had five sons, and 
all of these had the high priesthood, and he himself 
first of all held the same honour a long time, which 
happened to no other of the high priests." The ap- 
pointment and deposition of Caiaphas is also named 
(Ant., xviii. 2, 2, and 4, 3), the latter just after Pilate 
was removed from his office. The contemporary rule 
of Herod Antipas and Pilate (Acts iv. 27) appears also 
both in Josephus and Suetonius. The surname Bar- 
nabas, given to Joses, and its interpretation, agree with 
the relative use of the two languages in Judea and 
Syria. The celebrity of G-amaliel agrees with the 
mention in the Mischna of Rabbin Gamaliel, son of 
Rabbi Symeon and grandson of Hillel. The state- 
ment that those who were with the high priest were 
of the Sadducees answers to the statement (Ant., xx. 
9, 1), where Ananus, the son of Annas, is said to follow 
the " sect of the Sadducees, who were fierce with refe- 
rence to legal judgments beyond all the Jews." The 
passing use of the title, " the taxing or census," applied 
to that under Cyrenius or Quirinus, agrees with the 
account in Josephus of its political celebrity, as a main 

H 



98 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

era in Jewish and Syrian history. The mention of 
Hebrews and Hellenists at Jerusalem, the prevalence 
of Greek names among Hellenist Jews, as in the seven 
deacons, and the existence of national synagogues, as 
that of the Libertines, or Jewish freedmen, are all 
features of instructive correspondence with the actual 
circumstances of the times. The road to Gaza is called 
" desert," in agreement with the topography. The 
name, Candace, according to Pliny (vi. 29), was taken 
in succession by the queens of Upper Egypt, or of the 
district of Meroe. Other features of correspondence 
with general history are — the resort of worshippers to 
Jerusalem from remote countries at the feasts ; the 
relative position of Gaza, Azotus, and Csesarea; the 
temporary dominion of Aretas over Damascus (Acts ix. 
23-25 ; 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33) ; the rest of the churches, 
explained by Caligula's persecution of the Jews in the 
last years of his reign ; the nearness of Lydda and 
Joppa ; the use of the name Tabitha by the apostle, 
and Dorcas by the Greek historian ; the mention of the 
Italian band ; the military force at Csesarea ; the rigid 
practice of the Jews about eating with Gentiles ; the 
importance attached to the distinction of food, as lawful 
or impure ; the greater freedom shown by the Jews 
from Cyprus and Cyrene ; the place and occasion when 
the name Christian was introduced ; the mention of the 
reign of Claudius, in contrast to that of Caligula, when 
Agabus gave the prophecy, and that of Nero when the 
history was written ; the reign of Herod Agrippa over 
Judea under Claudius, his quarrel with Tyre, his re- 
conciliation, and his sudden death, after a public oration 
at Csesarea. 

(2.) From the death of Herod to St. Paul's voyage 
to Rome. 

The number and variety of the external allusions 



THE HISTOEICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 99 

and confirmations of the history seem only to increase, 
when the gospel is formally spread among the Gentiles 
by the first missionary journey. Seleucia is mentioned 
familiarly, in passing, as the port of Antioch. Salamis 
and Paphos are placed on opposite sides of Cyprus, the 
first nearer Antioch, the second more remote from it. 
The Jews were numerous in the island, and had many 
synagogues there, in agreement with the mention of 
their expulsion from it in the time of Trajan. A pro- 
consul, not a proprsetor, is named. Suetonius mentions 
that Cyprus was at first an imperial province, when 
Augustus shared the provinces with the senate, but that 
he restored it to the senate again. The sorcerer had 
an Arabic as well as a Hebrew name, and the apostle a 
Roman. This agrees with the extensive intermixture 
of the Jews, by residence, with other nations, and with 
St. Paul's birth as a Roman citizen. The site of An- 
tioch in Pisidia has been lately re-discovered, " with an 
inscription, Antiochese Csesare." Iconium is assigned 
by Xenophon to Phrygia (Anab. i. 2, 19), but by Strabo, 
Cicero, and Pliny to Lycaonia, and by Ammianus 
Marcellinus to Pisidia. Here no province is named for 
it, and it seems at the time to have been a distinct 
territory, ruled by a tetrarch (Plin. Nat. Hist. v. 27). 
Lystra and Derbe are called cities of Lycaonia, and it 
is said to have a distinct dialect. So we read in Ste- 
phanus Byzantinus, " Derbe is a garrison and port (?) 
of Isauria ; but some call it Derbea, which is, in the 
dialect of Lycaonia, the juniper bush." Attalia is 
mentioned as near to Perga, and a seaport. It lies on 
the opposite side of a large plain, and was built by 
Attalus for trade with Syria and Egypt, and is still 
called Satalia. The land route from Antioch to Jeru- 
salem is briefly described as passing through Phenice 
and Samaria. The law of Moses is affirmed by St. James 

h 2 



100 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

to be read in the synagogues every sabbath throughout 
the Eastern cities. This wide extension of Jewish 
synagogue worship, and its constant character, is con- 
firmed by Jewish and classic writers. Phrygia, Ga- 
latia, Asia, Mysia, Bithynia, and Troas are named 
incidentally, but in their natural order, in the apostle's 
journey to the coast. The voyage to Philippi takes 
three days, with a notice that the wind was favourable. 
The return, with no such notice, is said to have been in 
five days. Samothracia and Neapolis are made the two 
stages of these voyages in their due order. Philippi is 
termed " the first city of that part of Macedonia, and 
a colony." The province had been broken into four dis- 
tricts, on its conquest by JEmilius Paullus, and Philippi 
was the first city of importance within the province on 
the fine of route. It was also a Roman colony, and the 
inscription is still found on coins : " Colonia Augusta 
Julia Philippensis." The Jewish place of prayer was 
" by a river side." A small stream, Gangites, ran by the 
town ; and such proseuchce were near running streams 
for convenience in Jewish purifications. Lydia was " a 
seller of purple, of Thyatira." Inscriptions still remain 
of " the guild of dyers " of Thyatira. The names of the 
magistrates and officers, and the mode of punishment, 
beating with rods, agree with the character of the city 
as a Roman colony. The apostle " journeyed through 
Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica." The great 
Egnatian road (ohos) connects these towns, and an 
ancient itinerary reckons these three stages at thirty- 
three, thirty, and thirty-seven Roman miles. Thessa- 
lonica was a free Greek city. The mention of the 
Demus and the politarchs, or rulers, corresponds. They 
are Greek rather than Roman names. The original 
" where was the synagogue of the Jews," implies that 
one was found here only, and not in the three other 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 101 

towns. Thessalonica was the capital of the province, 
and hence was a natural place for this preference on the 
part of the Jews. Athens is said to be " wholly given 
to idolatry ;" and Xenophon calls the city " one entire 
altar, altogether an offering to the gods." Pausanias 
calls the Athenians " more devout towards the gods 
than other persons." The sects of the Epicureans and 
Stoics, and the curious, inquisitive, talkative character 
of the Athenians, are other features of strict historical 
reality. Altars, also, dyvwarw 8ew, to an unknown God, 
are affirmed by Pausanias and Philostratus to have 
been reared in several parts of the city. Mention is 
made of a decree of Claudius, that all Jews should 
depart from Rome. Suetonius writes of that emperor : 
" Judgeos, Chresto impulsore assidue tumultuantes, 
Roma expulit." It is named, in passing, that Gallio 
was deputy of Achaia while St. Paul was at Corinth. 
Tacitus gives particulars of his appointment through 
his brother Seneca, and the time agrees punctually with 
the date inferred here from the rest of the history, or 
a.d. 52 — 54. He is called Proconsul; and the pro- 
vince had been imperial for a time under Tiberius, but 
was transferred by Claudius to the senate. The allusion 
to St. Paul's vow, and his haste to reach Jerusalem by 
Pentecost, agrees with the customs of the Jews. The 
phrases " he went up, and saluted the church, and 
went down to Antioch," answer to a time when Jeru- 
salem was still the sacred metropolis even of Gentile 
believers, since the place is implied, but not named. 
Asiarchs are mentioned at Ephesus, and also the 
worship of Diana, as the tutelar goddess of the city. 
A passage occurs with the phrase, " I swear by our 
country's deity, the great Artemis of the Ephesians," 
and also an inscription with the words, " the great 
goddess Artemis before the city." The ruins of the 



102 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

theatre, and its site, indicate it to be the largest of any 
known in the remains of antiquity. The name of 
Asiarchs is also given, in many inscriptions, to officers 
chosen by the cities of Asia to preside over their fes- 
tivals. The title of the " townclerk," or " ^a^aTeus-," 
occurs in existing Ephesian inscriptions. So also the 
description of the image Ato7reTes-, or Jove-descended, 
and the title of the city, Newicopos, or temple-keeper, 
are confirmed as in actual and frequent use at Ephesus. 
The intervals of the return J voyage from Philippi 
correspond minutely with the known distances, and: 
with the interval from the Passover to the Pentecost 
(Acts xx. 6, 16 ; xxi. 8). Philippi, Troas, Assos, Mity- 
lene, Chios, Samos, Trogyllium, Miletus, Ephesus, Coos, 
Ehodes, Patara, Cyprus, Tyre, Ptolemais, Ceesarea, are 
all mentioned on the route in the most rapid manner ; 
but the presence of an eyewitness is apparent in every 
part, and is also implied, in the most unobtrusive way, 
by the transition to the first person — " We sailed 
away from Philippi after the days of unleavened 
bread," Acts xx. 6. We have, next, the mention of 
the Egyptian, and of the Sicarii, both of them named 
more fully by Josephus ; of the Stairs of Antonia, 
where was the Eoman garrison ; of the preference, by 
the Jews, of their native dialect, while Greek was still 
widely intelligible ; of the privileges of Roman citizens, 
and the fear of the captain who had violated them ; of 
the feud of the Pharisees and Sadducees ; of the recent 
change of high priest, after the death of Jonathan, 
mentioned in Josephus, which accounts for St. Paul's 
ignorance that Ananias held the office ; and of the letter 
of Lysias to Felix, so characteristic of a Greek holding 
office under a Roman governor. We have a further har- 
mony with facts, otherwise known to us, in the govern- 
ment of Felix at this time, his covetous spirit, his 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 103 

marriage with the Jewess Drusilla, and his removal, when 
Festus became his successor; in the frequent appeals 
from Judea to the emperor at Rome ; in the royal 
dignity of Agrippa and Bernice, though, unlike Herod 
Agrippa, they had plainly no authority at Jerusalem ; 
and in the whole course of procedure of a Roman pro- 
vincial governor, when conducting a cause of public 
importance. In all these numerous particulars every 
conceivable test of genuine history is satisfied and 
fulfilled. 

(3.) The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul. 

These two closing chapters, when minutely examined, 
with all the light which can be thrown upon them by 
modern knowledge of the Levant, and by classical 
accounts of the ships and navigation of the ancients, 
become a striking and impressive demonstration of the 
truth of the whole narrative to which they belong. 
The subject has been fully treated by Mr. Smith, in 
his " Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul," to which the 
reader must be referred ; or to the brief abstract of its 
chief results in Dean Alford's Notes, or in Supplement 
Gr to Paley's Evidences. 1 It is almost impossible to con- 
ceive how a narrative of the same length, without any 
loss of perfect simplicity, could be more densely crowded 
with decisive tokens of its being the result of ocular 
testimony, and in every part historically true. 

(4.) Coincidences with the Epistles of St. Paul. 

These have been traced at length in the Horse 
Paulinse, and placed in so clear a light, that it seems 
impossible to conceive how more convincing proofs 
could be given of the genuineness of the letters, and 
of the historical truth of St. Luke's narrative, from 
the first missionary journey to the arrival of St. Paul 
at Rome. The indirect nature of the coincidence, in 

1 School Ed., Religious Tract Society. 



104 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

almost every instance, creates an impression of reality, 
which no honest and candid mind can resist. A few 
remarks require correction, and other particulars of the 
same kind may be added, as in my own supplement ;* 
but the effect of Paley's own work must be so decisive, 
on minds open to conviction, as scarcely to admit of 
sensible increase. 

(5.) Another class of evidence may be found in the 
Internal Harmony of the history itself. Amidst the 
simplicity and truthfulness of tone in the separate 
narratives, there is a unity of design in the successive 
steps of the progress of the Gospel, which leads our 
thoughts to the perception of a Divine plan, steadily 
fulfilled, while it only confirms the historical reality of 
each separate portion. The opening words of our Lord 
are like a key to the structure of the treatise. " Ye 
shall be witnesses to me, both in Jerusalem and Judea, 
and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." 
This order is observed in the accounts that follow. 
Seven chapters record the spread of the Gospel at 
Jerusalem and in Judea. After the death of Stephen 
it is preached with great success in Samaria. The con- 
version of the eunuch is a first step in its diffusion to 
the ends of the earth. An apostle for the Gentiles 
is then provided. Their formal and public admission 
into the church follows next, in the history of Cornelius. 
A central post among the Gentiles is gained at Antioch, 
and a Gentile name replaces that of JSTazarenes. The 
persecution of Herod, and the murder of an apostle, 
sever the link which bound the church so closely to 
Jerusalem. Then the first missionary journey begins, 
with Antioch for its starting point and goal of return. 
The freedom of Gentile believers from the law of Moses 
is secured by the council at Jerusalem. Then the 

1 Hora Apostol., Keligious Tract Society. 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 105 

Gospel, set free from its Jewish moorings, spreads 
swiftly forward through the heathen provinces, Phrygia 
and Galatia, to Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, 
Corinth, and Ephesus, where the apostle receives a 
prophecy of that visit to Eome, with which the Bible 
history comes to its final close. " Paul purposed in 
the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and 
Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been 
there, I must also see Rome." Acts xix. 21. His arrival 
there marks the close of the narrative ; which begins 
with the acceptance of the Gospel by Jews at Jerusalem 
on the day of Pentecost, and ends with its rejection 
by Jews, and acceptance by Gentiles, in the metropolis 
of the heathen world. 

When all these various kinds of evidence have been 
summed up together, and weighed in an impartial 
balance, it may be safely affirmed that there is no extant 
history of the same age, and of similar length, which 
can clahn to approach the Book of Acts in full, various, 
and decisive proofs of historical veracity. Coins, in- 
scriptions, nautical records of ancient and modern times, 
Jewish and classic authors, the Epistles of St. Paul, and 
the truest and deepest chords of the human heart, all 
conspire to stamp it, from first to last, with the plainest 
signature of reality and truth. 

II. The Four Gospels. 

The Four Gospels and the Book of Acts form two 
distinct portions of New Testament history. The space 
of time is probably just the same, or thirty-three years. 
Their structure, however, is very different. In the 
former we have four parallel biographies, but in the 
latter, one continued narrative. The account in the 
Gospels, also, is confined to our Lord's childhood, and 
his public ministry; and twenty-eight years, or six- 
sevenths of the whole interval, are passed by in almost 



106 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

total silence. All is here centred on the person and 
public work of the Messiah. This simple and sublime 
unity of object distinguishes them, not only from common 
histories, but from the other historical books of Scrip- 
ture themselves. They seem only to echo in every 
page the Baptist 's message — " Behold the Lamb of 
God, who taketh away the sin of the world." 

This character of the Gospels, so different from the 
Book of Acts, hinders them from offering numerous 
points of contact with general history. Their theatre 
is Palestine, and not the Roman world. The persons 
and places named in them are less numerous, and 
Josephus is almost the only writer with whom a direct 
historical comparison can be made. On the other hand, 
the concurrence of four historians supplies marks of 
reality of a different and most impressive kind. The 
vital connection, also, of the life of Christ, both with all 
the prophecies of the Old Testament, and with the later 
history of the New, forms a peculiar and most weighty 
proof of the deep and intense reality of the whole nar- 
rative. We may consider the evidence under the heads 
of Time, Place, Persons, Reconcilable Diversities, and 
the double reference to the Old Testament and to the 
latter history of the Church of Christ. 

(1.) The Time to which the Gospels refer is his- 
torically well denned. The possible variations amount 
only to three or four years at either limit. They are 
due mainly to the fact that Josephus is the only writer 
who affords very full data for comparison, and that 
some of his statements appear slightly inconsistent with 
each other. The limits of the date of our Lord's birth 
are B.C. 6 and 3, and those of the date of his death 
a.d. 29 and 33. The direct statement of Josephus 
places the death of Herod between the summer of B.C. 4 
and of B.C. 3. But from his mention of an eclipse before 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 107 

that death, many have inferred that it took place earlier, 
or in March B.C. 4, and others that it was three years 
later, or Jan. B.C. 1, when an eclipse took place about 
three months, instead of one month, before the Pass- 
over. The direct statement of Josephus, being reckoned 
from a double date of the reign, is probably the safest 
guide. In this case Herod's illness must have lasted 
the greater part of a year after the eclipse of March 13, 
B.C. 4, and the birth of our Lord, if referred to Dec. 
B.C. 5, would be nearly a year before Herod's death. 
His baptism would then be in a.d. 27, when he would 
be one or two months above thirty years of age, and his 
first Passover, soon after, would be the forty-sixth year 
of Herod's rebuilding the temple. His death, after a 
three years' ministry, would be in a.d. 30, when Thurs- 
day would naturally be the Passover day. 

The notes of time, which serve to fix the chronology, 
are indirect and various, and he scattered through the 
different Gospels ; and their agreement, with only a very 
slight degree of uncertainty, is a striking evidence of 
their common truth. The birth of our Lord, and his 
flight into Egypt, are fixed by St. Matthew to the reign 
of Herod, and the return from Egypt to the accession 
of Archelaus. St. Luke, again, places just six months 
between our Lord's birth and that of the Baptist, and 
assigns the Annunciation to the reign of Herod, and 
the Nativity itself to the time of a census, either made 
by Oyrenius, or before his government of Syria began. 
It places the preaching of the Baptist in the fifteenth 
year of Tiberius, under the government of Pilate, states 
the age of our Lord at his baptism to be about thirty 
years, notices one Passover in the course of his ministry, 
and assigns it indirectly, by one of its parables, a length 
of about three years. The Gospel of St. John makes 
our Lord's ministry begin very soon after his baptism, 



108 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

at the time of a Passover, when the temple of Herod 
had been forty-six years in building; implies a second 
Passover at or near the time when the cure took place 
at the pool of Bethesda, and a third about the time of 
the miracle of the five thousand; and specifies visits 
to Jerusalem at the feasts of Tabernacles and Dedication 
in the last year. In its notice of the last Passover it 
seems at first sight to vary from the other Gospels, and 
to place the Jewish festival a day later, as referred to 
the week days ; and the solution of this difficulty has 
divided the judgment of critics and expositors from the 
earliest times. 

Now if we retain the direct statement of Josephus 
on the length of Herod's reign, confirmed by the coins 
of Herod Antipas, and the account in Dio of the exile 
of Archelaus ; and also accept his date for Herod's 
rebuilding the temple ; if we suppose that our Lord's 
birth was nearly a year before Herod's death, as 
St. Matthew seems to imply ; and that St. Luke, a 
writer of Antioch, dated the years of Tiberius by a 
provincial reckoning, from his association with Augustus 
in power over the provinces, two or three years before 
his sole reign, as attested by Suetonius; and also that 
our Lord was just about thirty years old at his baptism, 
the due priestly age ; if we assume farther that his 
ministry lasted three full years, as implied in the 
parable of the fig-tree, and inferred with strong likeli- 
hood from the feasts of St. John ; and finally, if we 
expound the statements of St. John on the last Passover, 
as is both possible and reasonable, so as to agree with 
the joint evidence of the three first Grospels ; then all 
these notes of time, so widely dispersed, so indirect and 
various, will agree perfectly together, and with the 
proper age of the moon at the time of the Passover, and 
thus become cumulative evidence to the reality of the 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 109 

events, and the historical accuracy of the record. Even 
if we were led, by a different view of the testimony of 
Josephus, to place the death of Herod, part of a year 
earlier, or more than two years later, which is the limit 
of possible variation, the agreement will be only affected 
in a small degree, if we raise the Crucifixion to a.d. 29 
or place it lower in a.d. 33 ; and in every alternative 
the evidence of reality, from the concurrence of notes of 
time so widely scattered, will scarcely receive a sensible 
abatement. 

(2.) The Places named in the Gosj)els are about fifty 
in number, or half as many as in the Book of Acts, 
They include the province of Syria, the tetrarchies or 
districts of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Iturea, Trachonitis, 
Abilene, the regions of Perea, of Tyre and Sidon, of 
Gennesaret, Dalmanutha, and Decapolis, and the land 
of Gadara. Besides these, we have the following towns 
or localities, partly with Old Testament, partly with 
Syriac, and partly with classic names — Bethlehem, 
Bethabara, Bethany, Bethphage, Bethsaida, Chorazin, 
Capernaum, Cana, Nazareth, Nain, Jericho, Jerusalem, 
Sychar in Samaria, and Ephraim near the border, 
Aenon, Salim, Emmaus, Ohvet, Arimathea, Tiberias, 
and Csesarea Philippi, Bethesda, Gabbatha, Golgotha, 
Gethsemane, the Pool of Siloam, and the Brook Kidron. 
All these local allusions have only had their truth and 
accuracy confirmed by the assiduous research of modern 
travellers. Bethany, Nain, the probable site of Caper- 
naum, Cana of Galilee, Sychar, and the well of Jacob, 
have all been brought to light once more ; or new points 
of coincidence have been discovered in the mention of 
places and scenes already known. 

(3.) Besides our Lord and his Apostles, about thirty 
other Persons are named in the course of the Gospel 
history. These include the two emperors, Augustus 



110 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and Tiberius, Herod the Great, Archelaus, Herod 
Antipas and Herodias, Pontius Pilate, Annas and 
Caiaphas, the Syrian governor Cyrenius or Quirinus, 
and the tetrarchs Philip and Lysanias. In every one 
the statement is in agreement with the known facts of 
Roman, Syrian, and Jewish history ; while in some of 
them there is a special and minute coincidence. The 
birth of our Lord is placed under Herod the Great. 
But it lies, from the other notes of time, so near to his 
death, as placed by Josephus, that when the latter is 
removed only half a year backward, some difficulty 
begins to arise, and a shortening of his reign by only 
three years would involve the Gospels in direct contra- 
diction to other facts of history. Again, the return of 
Joseph into Galilee has its reason assigned, that Arche- 
laus was reigning in Judea. The reign of Herod himself 
was over both provinces. But Galilee was separated, 
and placed under Herod Antipas as tetrarch, at the 
accession of Archelaus ; while the latter, we find from 
Josephus, gained a character for cruelty from the 
slaughter of the Jews at the very first Passover in his 
reign. The marriage of Herod with Herodias, after her 
divorce from Herod's brother, is also narrated at some 
length in Josephus ; and was the occasion of a great 
reverse in a battle with Aretas, whose daughter, his 
former wife, was dismissed for her sake. Josephus adds 
that this defeat was looked upon by the Jews as a 
Divine judgment for his murder of John the Baptist, 
which confirms incidentally another main fact in the 
three first Gospels. The government of Pilate, again, 
is said to have lasted ten years, and his removal by 
Vitellius is placed at the Passover in the year before the 
death of Tiberius, or a.d. 36. That government will 
thus include the opening, as well as the whole course, 
of the joint ministries of our Lord and his forerunner. 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. Ill 

The high priesthood of Caiaphas yields another coinci- 
dence of a similar kind. 

(4.) The Reconcilable Diversity of the Gospels, with 
substantial unity amidst their variation in details, is a 
powerful evidence of their common truth. The resem- 
blance of the three first is so extensive, as to have led 
many critics to the hypothesis that they are varieties 
of one original document. The fourth has all the marks 
of a later and supplementary narrative. All of them 
agree in their mention of the Baptist as the forerunner 
of Christ, in their allusions to our Lord's baptism, in 
the account of the miracle of the five thousand, and in 
the closing scenes of the crucifixion and resurrection. 
The agreement of the three first is much more exten- 
sive, and includes about thirty leading incidents of the 
Saviour's ministry. Still each has its own distinct 
character, and there is considerable diversity in arrange- 
ment and in the minor details. 

There are two opposite ways, in which the testimony 
of witnesses to the same events may be rendered sus- 
picious or proved false. Their agreement in details, or 
in phrases, may be so complete as to seem the artificial 
result of collusion, or there may be extensive and irre- 
concilable contradiction. On the other hand, the com- 
bination which gives the strongest impression of reality 
and truthfulness is when substantial agreement in the 
main facts is joined with freedom and variety in the tone 
and method of the description, and with slight discrepancy, 
real or apparent, in secondary details. 

Now this is precisely the character of the four G-ospels. 
The agreement, in a few passages, is verbally complete ; 
and in all the main outlines it is full and clear. In other 
cases, the difference is such as almost to give the impres- 
sion of being irreconcilable. The historical unity is so 
apparent that scores of harmonists have endeavoured, 



112 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

with considerable success, to combine them all into one 
continuous narrative. On the other hand the differences 
have occasioned many disputes, among the most skilful 
harmonists, on the exact order of several events, and 
the most probable method of reconciliation. Side by 
side with their labours, a deep conviction is felt by the 
most careful critics and students, that each Gospel has a 
plan, style, and purpose of its own, and that it justly 
claims the rank of a distinct and unborrowed testimony. 
These two opposite tendencies, in the criticism of the 
Gospels, began early, and have continued down to our 
own days. At the close of the last century, the docu- 
ment hypothesis was in much favour. From the amount 
of agreement, extending often to the very phrases, an 
attempt was made to resolve the three first or synoptic 
Gospels into a kind of literary patchwork, formed in 
each case by combining three or four shorter documents, 
no longer extant, in a particular way. The principle, 
after being espoused by some eminent critics, was at 
length elaborated into such a complex scheme, to account 
for all the observed diversities, that its triumph proved 
its ruin. The documents required were so numerous, 
and the conjectural processes so intricate, as to disprove 
effectually the hypothesis out of which they arose. An 
opposite view is now in vogue, that the Gospels were 
derived from oral tradition, but in all other respects 
strictly independent of each other. This hypothesis has 
perhaps equal difficulties on the other side. The writer 
of the last, it is plain, must have known of and seen 
the earlier ones, unless we contradict equally its tra- 
ditional authorship and its internal features. Yet the 
diversity here is the greatest of all. There is nothing, 
then, in the smaller differences of the others, to preclude 
the idea that each knew the writing of his predecessors. 
Whether this were the case or otherwise, the actual 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 113 

measure of divergence is the same, and effectually 
disproves the notion of any attempt at collusive and 
artificial agreement. No one of them is a mere echo of 
any other. St. Mark, who narrates only two or three 
incidents that are not given in St. Matthew, is the most 
original and copious of all the four in the minuter 
details. St. Luke, who seems through several chapters 
(ch. iv. — ix.) to follow closely in the steps of his two 
predecessors, diverges from them almost entirely through- 
out nine chapters that follow ; and thus forms a midway 
transition to the Grospel of St. John, which consists 
almost wholly of new and distinct matter. But the 
simple fact that two extreme hypotheses have been widely 
maintained, of a common documentary origin, and of 
total and entire independence, is a convincing proof, on 
the large scale, that there is just that union of substantial 
agreement and partial diversity, which imparts to the 
concurring testimony of different witnesses the most 
decisive evidence of honesty and truth. 

Viewed in this light, the difficulties of harmonists on 
several points in the Gospels, whatever perplexity they 
may occasion as to the exact nature and extent of the 
inspiration of the evangelists, are a striking confirma- 
tion of their historical fidelity. The four witnesses, 
whom the Lord has provided for his church, that its 
faith in the great facts of his life and death may rest 
on a sure foundation, cannot, by any effort, be fused and 
melted down into one. They offer us stereoscopic views 
of their great Object. You cannot simply superpose 
them without producing a sense of partial confusion. 
The lines overlap, and seem here and there to interfere ; 
though the great resemblance is plain at once. But 
combine them rightly, as views taken from points of 
sight slightly different, but of the same object, and 
the combined picture has a depth, massiveness, and 

i 



114 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

solidity, which no single outline, however full and clear 
in itself, could ever attain. 

A comparison of the Gospels with the predictions of 
the Old Testament, and with the later history of the 
Church would supply still further evidence of their 
historical truth. The facts they record are so deeply 
and closely interwoven with the whole course of Provi- 
dence, both in earlier and later times, that no amount 
of violence can rend them away, without destroying 
the entire texture of the world's moral history. But it 
is needless to dwell on further proofs, where the marks 
of reality are so deeply impressed on every page. Igno- 
rance is here the usual source of scepticism; and a 
simple perusal of the histories of the New Testament 
leaves an irresistible impression of their substantial 
truth and historical fidelity on every thoughtful and 
ingenuous mind. 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 115 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

The Old Testament history is naturally parted by the 
Exodus, the Building of the Temple, and the Captivity, 
into four distinct portions. In inquiring into the evidence 
of its reality, the proper order is to begin with the latest 
and nearest portion, and to ascend successively to those 
which are more remote. 

I. From the Captivity of Babylon, to the Birth of 
Christ. 

Three books of sacred history — Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
Esther, belong to this fourth period ; but their joint 
length barely equals the average of the six books which 
come before them, four of which belong wholly to the 
third period. These three books, however, offer many 
features of great interest, in considering the evidence 
for the genuineness and veracity of the Bible histories. 

(1.) The first feature worthy of notice in these books 
is their chronological limitation. The fourth period 
reaches from the Captivity, or the Return, to the Birth 
of Christ. Now the course of the Bible history is 
unbroken and continuous from the Creation to the Cap- 
tivity, and no blank of a single century is found through 
a range of not less than three thousand five hundred 
years. Even the fifty years from the Fall of the Tenrple 
to the Return are bridged over by historical chapters 
in Ezekiel and Daniel, and by the last verses of Jeremiah, 

i 2 



lift THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and the book of Kings. The thread is resumed after 
the Eeturn in these three books, and continues through 
a whole century, down to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes 
Longimanus. But here the canon closes abruptly. 
There is a space of more than four centuries, of which 
no Bible history is given. The broken thread is resumed, 
however, in the New Testament; and then continues 
unbroken through two generations, till the arrival of 
St. Paul at Rome, only seven years before the total 
dissolution of the Jewish polity. The books of Macca- 
bees, it is true, belong to the interval ; but they range 
over only two generations at most, and also it is clear 
that they never formed a part of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
or Jewish canon. 

This break, then, of four centuries is quite unique. 
It is a solitary exception to the continuity of a history 
which ranges through more than four thousand years. 
Sacred prophecy, in Malachi, and sacred history, in 
Nehemiah, cease almost at the same moment ; and both 
reappear together, in tenfold effulgence, in the history of 
St. Matthew's Gospel, and the prophecy on the Mount 
of Olives. 

This sudden suspension, also, of the Bible history is 
attended by other circumstances which add to its signi-* 
ficance. The interval is 430 years, or exactly the same 
which is noted so prominently as closing at the Exodus, 
that conspicuous type of the Christian redemption. It 
is also spanned by two prophecies of Daniel, in successive 
chapters, one of which serves to fix and define its length • 
while the other predicts its political changes so clearly, 
as to have suggested the solution, from Porphyry 
down to the modern sceptics of England and Germany, 
that it must certainly have been composed after the 
events had occurred. Yiewed as parts of a Divine plan, 
the relation of all these facts to each other is clear and 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 117 

intelligible. Sacred history and prophecy ceased together, 
about four centuries before the coming of the Messiah, 
that there might be a clearer mark of the dying out of 
the old covenant, and that the dawn of the new, the 
predicted rising of the Sun of righteousness, might by 
contrast be rendered more deeply impressive. But still 
the faith of the Jewish church needed support and 
guidance during this long interval of delay. Therefore, 
while sacred history and actual prophetic messengers 
were withdrawn, the light of prophecy was given with 
peculiar clearness. These visions of Daniel well supplied 
the place of direct history. The prophecy of the Seventy 
Weeks, beginning from one of the decrees in Ezra and 
Nehemiah, defined a space of sixty-nine weeks, or 483 
years, to the appearance of "Messiah the Prince" in his 
public ministry ; and the later prophecy of the " Scripture 
of truth " described the main events of Persian, Syrian, 
and Egyptian history, in connection with the Jews, 
through nearly four of the five centuries which make 
up the whole period from the Eeturn to the Nativity. 
The concurrence of this double clearness of prophetic 
fight with the suspense of Bible history, both of them 
facts unique and without a parallel, marks clearly the 
presence of a Divine plan. On the sceptical hypothesis 
with regard to Daniel, both facts are alike inexplicable. 
Why should Jewish writers at this moment have sud- 
denly ceased to compose their own annals, and to add 
them, as fresh books equally sacred, to the early histories ? 
Or why should some unknown Jew, in the days of 
Antiochus, instead of openly assuming the upright and 
honourable character of a simple annalist, usurp the pro- 
phet's mantle, in order to write a mere syllabus of Persian 
and Syrian reigns already past ; and then impose it on his 
countrymen, under the name of Daniel, for a true predic- 
tion, with the audacious title, when applied to a shameless 



118 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

forgery, of " the Scripture of truth ?" Nothing can be 
more meagre and threadbare than Dan. xi. 2 — 30, when 
taken for history written after the event. But when 
viewed as genuine prediction, it stands alone, even in 
the Bible, in the clear testimony it yields to the Divine 
foreknowledge, and in its fulness of prophetic light, 
vouchsafed at the exact moment when prophetic inspira- 
tion and sacred history were withdrawn together. 

(2.) A second feature of these three books is the 
entire absence of the supernatural. No trace of an 
alleged miracle occurs in any one of them. The old 
covenant, which the earlier books of Exodus and Num- 
bers usher in with signal wonders, seems here to be 
indeed waxing old, and " ready to vanish away." This 
character belongs equally to the three books, though in 
other respects there is a singular and total contrast. 
Ezra and Nehemiah are loaded with details that seem 
almost trivial, and their outline appears fragmentary 
and unfinished. The Book of Esther, on the contrary, 
has such a striking dramatic unity, that the suspicion 
might easily arise, in some minds, of its being a purely 
artificial composition. But the entire absence of direct 
miracle is a feature common to it with both the others, 
while the contrast in other respects is complete. 

This negative character, besides the deeper truth it 
conveys with regard to the decay of the Jewish dis- 
pensation, has plainly an important bearing on the 
reality and truth of the whole Bible narrative. The 
inspired annals close abruptly, but there is no abrupt- 
ness in the transition from sacred to common history. 
We have an easy stepping-stone, by which the mind 
may rise from the level of ordinary events, and find 
itself unawares in the outer court of the temple of God. 
There is no shadow of a plea, in these books, for doubt- 
ing their entire truthfulness, because of the presence 



THE HISTORICAL 'TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 119 

of a miraculous element in the narrative. Yet, when 
once received in simplicity, they lead us by the hand, 
upward and onward, by the decree of Cyrus which 
fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah; by the mention 
of the Urim and Thummim, as a former means of 
supernatural guidance since withdrawn; by the Feast 
of Tabernacles, referring back to the history in the 
wilderness; and above all, by the prayer and song of 
the Levites, — to all the earlier miracles of the old cove- 
nant. " Thou didst divide the sea before them, so that 
they went through the midst of the sea on dry land ; 
and their persecutors thou threwest into the deep, as a 
stone into the mighty waters. Moreover, thou leddest 
them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by 
a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way they 
should go. Thou earnest down also upon Mount Sinai, 
and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them 
right judgments and pure laws, good statutes and com- 
mandments ; and gavest them bread from heaven for 
their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out 
of the rock for their thirst." 

(3.) Chronological distinctness is a third character 
very conspicuous in two of these books, by which 
the main line of the history is continued and brought 
to its close. They occupy just a century under the 
Persian kings, the dates are expressly given, and 
the reigns can be identified without difficulty, in full 
agreement with the canon of Ptolemy and other autho- 
rities. The reign of Cyrus dates in the canon from the 
capture of Babylon, B.C. 538, and no place is there left 
for Darius the Mede. But the book of Daniel, which 
places his reign after the capture, almost implies its 
short duration by the mention of his age ; and by a 
further allusion, xi. 1, implies that this short reign was 
secured by a special Divine interference, against a 



120 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT, 

strong current of Persian supremacy which had now 
set in. Thus a comparison of texts restricts it to two 
years. The decree of Cyrus is thus referred to B.C. 536, 
his first year in Scripture, but his third in the canon. 
The setting up of the altar is referred to the seventh 
month of the same year, and the foundation of the 
temple to the second month, or the early spring of the 
year following. "We have, next, a brief mention of two 
reigns before Darius, during which the building was 
delayed by vexatious opposition. The beginning of 
this interval answers to the time of Daniel's fasting and 
humiliation, when he received his last and fullest pro- 
phecy of the future history of his people. History 
supplies just two reigns before Darius Hystaspes ; 
Cambyses, who from his cruelty and passion, and 
Smerdis, who from his character as a Magian impostor, 
adverse to Cyrus and his race, would be likely to reverse 
the policy marked by the decree of restoration. The 
work is then resumed in the second year of Darius, or 
B.C. 520, and the temple is finished in Adar of the sixth 
year, that is, February or March, B.C. 515 ; while in the 
fourth of Darius, agreeably with Zech. vii. 1 — 5, exactly 
seventy years were complete from the destruction of the 
former temple. The reign of Xerxes is here passed 
over, though clearly described in Daniel's prophecy; 
and the history resumes with the mission of Ezra in the 
seventh of Artaxerxes Longimanus, or April B.C. 458 ; 
while his arrival at Jerusalem is referred to the first 
day of the fifth month, or August in the same year. 
The history closes with the separation of the strange 
wives, complete by the first day of the next year, March 
or April B.C. 457. An interval of " seven weeks and 
threescore and two weeks," or 483 years, seems to lead 
exactly to the first month of the Baptist's ministry, and 
to the baptism of our Lord, followed by his first Pass- 






THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 121 

over; after which he began his preaching with the 
message — " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand." 

The hook of Nehemiah comes a little later under the 
same reign. It begins with the month Chisleu, of the 
twentieth of Artaxerxes, and continues with the month 
Nisan, or the first Jewish month, in the same twentieth 
year, This agrees with the indirect evidence of classic 
history, which refers both the true and nominal acces- 
sion of Artaxerxes to December, and not to the early 
months of the Julian year, in which case these two 
notices would have contradicted each other. The history 
closes in the 32nd year, or soon after (Neh. xiii. 22), 
or B.C. 433 ; exactly 430 years before the Exodus of 
our Lord himself from Egypt after Herod's death. 
Thus we have plainly, in these two last books of Bible 
history, a high degree of clearness and consistency in 
their notes of time. 

(4.) Another feature of these books is the multitude 
and variety of personal and local details. The sacred 
history gives here, at first sight, a strong impression of 
being tediously and superfluously minute. We have, 
first, an enumeration of the vessels restored from Ba- 
bylon : " thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers 
of silver, nine-and-twenty knives, thirty basins of gold, 
silver basins of a second sort four hundred and ten, and 
other vessels a thousand; all the vessels of gold and 
silver five thousand four hundred." Next follows a list 
of the captives who returned with Zerubbabel, in thirty- 
three companies of the people, each distinctly named 
and numbered; four companies of priests, and one of 
Levites, one of singers, and one of the porters, thirty- 
five companies of Nethinims, and eleven of Solomon's 
servants, of which only the total is given — three hundred 
and ninety-two. We have then two Persian decrees, 



122 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

one of Smerdis, and another of Darius Hystaspes, given 
at length. A third decree of Artaxerxes follows. The 
chiefs of the fathers are then named, and particulars are 
given of Ezra's j ourney . The minuteness of the account 
is like a pre-Raphaelite drawing. " Then we departed 
from the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first 
month, to go unto Jerusalem ; and the hand of our God 
was upon us, and he delivered us from the enemy, and 
such as lay in wait by the way. And we came to 
Jerusalem, and abode there three days. Now on the 
fourth day was the silver and the gold of the vessels 
weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Mere- 
moth son of Uriah the priest ; and with him was 
Eleazar the son of Phinehas, and with them Jozabad 
son of Jeshua, and Noadiah son of Binnui, Levites ; 
by number and by weight of every one : and all the 
weight was written at that time. Also the children 
of those that had been carried away, which were come 
out of the captivity, offered burnt - offerings unto 
the God of Israel ; twelve bullocks for all Israel, 
ninety and six rams, seventy and seven lambs, and 
twelve he-goats for a sin-offering; all a burnt-offering 
unto the Lord." 

The book closes with a list of those who put away 
their strange wives, in which a hundred and nine names 
are separately given. About double this number occur 
in the book of Nehemiah, which gives copious and 
minute details of the various parties, who joined in 
rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. The fibres are thus 
multiplied at the close, by which the sacred canon strikes 
root downward into Jewish history. Simplicity, gran- 
deur, dramatic unity seem all to be in some measure 
sacrificed, to secure the highest possible assurance of 
thorough reality and historical truth. 

(5.) The Book of Esther differs widely from these 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 123 

two other works. History meets us here in its most 
ideal, as in the others in its most real, form. The 
poetry of the opening description, the doomed race of 
Haman the Amalekite, the beauty of Esther, the law 
of the golden sceptre, the sleepless night of the king, 
which forms the crisis of the drama, and the greatness 
of Mordecai at the close, all conspire to throw around it 
the air of a dramatic composition. The entire absence 
of the name of God from first to last is another remark- 
able feature, which only deepens the moral significance 
of the whole. Even the reign to which it belongs is not 
quite clear.'- It must plainly be later than Cyrus, since 
Persia and Media, not Babylon, are in power, and Persia 
takes the precedence ; but opinions are still divided 
whether Xerxes or Artaxerxes is the true Ahasuerus. 
An internal coincidence, however, of a delicate and 
unobtrusive kind, makes it seem to me very probable 
that Josephus is right in referring the narrative to the 
latter of these two kings. 

But if any should infer, from the dramatic features 
of this book, that it is rather a poetical fiction than a 
real history, there is one plain and decisive argument, 
besides many others, which proves its unquestionable 
truth. The Feast of Purim, on the fourteenth and 
fifteenth of Adar, is affirmed at the close to have been 
appointed, by Esther and Mordecai, for a yearly me- 
morial of this great deliverance. This festival was 
observed in the days of Josephus, and has been ever 
since, throughout the long dispersion of the Jewish 
people. It still keeps its place in their calendar, along 
with the Passover, Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, 
and the Feast of Dedication. No testimony could be 
more decisive and complete to the reality and greatness 
of this national deliverance. 

The sacred history, then, in this closing portion, the 



124 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



fourth and latest period of the Old Testament, diverges 
on one side into the greatest minuteness of detail, and 
on the other, into the highest degree of dramatic unity 
and power ; but in both alike exhibits the clearest and 
fullest evidence of historical reality and truth. The 
overruling hand of Providence is placed in striking 
relief, but no trace of miraculous intervention is found 
in it ; as if these books were designed to form a step- 
-ping-stone of transition from common history to the 
miraculous story of the previous books, and every 
hindrance were purposely removed, which might pre- 
vent sceptical minds from recognising at once the truth 
of the sacred history. 

II. From Solomon to the Captivity. 

This third period occupies a space of about four 
hundred and thirty years from the accession of Solomon 
to the destruction of the Temple, or four hundred and 
eighty years to the fall of Babylon. It occupies the 
two books of Kings, and also the second of Chronicles, 
and includes the period of all the prophets, except 
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The greater part of 
it consists of the record of the divided kingdom, from 
the death of Solomon to the fall of Samaria. The proofs 
of its historical reality may be ranked under these 
heads — a clear and distinct chronology ; relations with 
heathen history ; the harmony of the accounts in Kings 
and Chronicles ; the multiplied allusions in the writings 
of the prophets ; and the internal harmonies and marks 
of truth in the narrative alone. 

(1.) The chronology of this period, compared with 
other histories, is very full and complete. The notes of : 
time are numerous, and occupy about forty verses in 
Chronicles, and eighty in Kings. With one or two 
very slight exceptions, where an error has probably 
entered in the numbers (such as the thirty-seventh in- ' 



THE HISTOEICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 125 

stead of the thirty-ninth year of Joash, 2 Kings xiii. 10), 
they are all consistent with each other. The interval 
fixes itself accurately by the data which the text 
supplies, so that the latitude of reasonable doubt 
amounts only to about three years. Baron Bunsen, it 
is true, in his work on Egypt, devotes twenty pages 
to the subject, and professes to have found twenty 
inconsistencies and errors in the notes of time in the 
second of Kings. These, however, are due entirely to 
his own strange incapacity to discern a simple and 
uniform law, which guides the notation of the syn- 
chronisms. When this is once perceived, and it is very 
simple, the alleged confusion disappears, and the intervals 
can be traced, from first to last, with the greatest ease. 
Even Usher and Clinton seem to have adopted a less 
natural view, which renders the process of comparison 
more subtle and laborious, though the final result is 
hardly affected at all by the difference in the two modes 
of computation. Those cross references, which Baron 
Bunsen seems to regard as full of error, and a source of 
hopeless perplexity, are in reality a series of strict and 
severe tests of the consistency of the whole narrative. 
The most erratic and illogical minds are thus almost 
compelled, in spite of their own instincts, to keep close 
to the true chronology. His own labours are a striking 
example. After contracting the space, in his first edition, 
to ten years less than the true period, he returns in 
the second to the received chronology, with a slight 
variety, which may probably give the true year of Solo- 
mon's accession ; though he has only reached this result 
by the help of conjectural emendations, which rest on 
no external evidence, and which falsify a large number 
of the plainest and most consistent notes of time. In 
fact, a chronology which depends on the reckoning of a 
double series of reigns, like those of Israel and Judah, 



126 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

of kings sometimes at war, sometimes in alliance, some- 
times joined in actual affinity, is itself a condensed 
history, and forms by its own consistency a most power- 
ful evidence for its own historical truth. 

(2.) The various references to heathen history in this 
period are another sign of reality, which alone is 
enough to prove the history real. Mention is made in 
its course of Hiram and Eth-baal, or Ithobalus, kings of 
Tyre ; of Shishak, Zerah, So, Tirhakah, Necho, and 
Hophra, kings of Egypt or Ethiopia ; of Pul, Tiglath 
Pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, 
kings of Nineveh ; and of Merodach Baladan, Nebu- 
chadnezzar, Evil Merodach, and Belshazzar, kings of 
Babylon. These allusions are spread over the whole 
period. Under the reign of Solomon mention is made 
of Hiram of Tyre, and Shishak of Egypt ; and under 
his son Behoboam, of Shishak alone. Under Asa, the 
invasion of Zerah occurs and is repelled. Jezebel, the 
wife of Ahab and contemporary of Jehoshaphat, is the 
daughter of Eth-baal, king of Tyre. Pul, the king of 
Assyria, exacts tribute from Menahem in the reign of 
Uzziah. Under Jotham and Ahaz, Tiglath Pileser 
invades Israel, and a second stage of captivity begins. 
Hoshea makes a compact with So, or Sevechus, king of 
Egypt, and is carried away captive by Shalmaneser. 
Sennacherib invades Judea under Hezekiah, and is 
checked in his career of conquest by tidings of the 
approach of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia. He is slain 
after his return to Nineveh, and Esarhaddon reigns in 
his stead ; to whom, under the name of Asnapper, the 
transfer of the Apharsites and other settlers, the fathers 
of the Samaritans, is ascribed in the book of Ezra. (Ezra 
iv. 2, 9, 10). Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon, sends 
messengers to Hezekiah, after the repulse of Sennacherib. 
Pharaoh Necho slays Josiah in the battle at Megiddo, 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 127 

and conquers Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar's reign 
extends through those of Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and 
Zedekiah, and extends to the thirty-seventh year of 
Jeconiah's captivity. Evil Merodach then succeeds to 
the throne, and Belshazzar is in power at the time 
when the kingdom is numbered and finished, and the 
reign of the Medes and Persians begins. It is thus 
plain that the links of connection with heathen monarchs 
and dynasties belong to the whole period, from its com- 
mencement to its close. 

Now in all these allusions to the history of four or 
five distinct nations — Tyre, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, 
and Ethiopia — and to eighteen or twenty kings, all 
mentioned by name, the palpable agreements are many, 
while not one contradiction or error has ever been 
shewn to exist. If there be any defect in this branch 
of the evidence, it is due to the uncertainties and 
variations of the heathen dynasties or annalists, which 
require us, in some cases, instead of treating them as 
independent witnesses, to adjust their uncertainties by 
the clearer fight and stricter chronology of the sacred 
writings. Thus the two lists of Egyptian dynasties, 
from Shishak to Amasis, who answer to Solomon and 
Zerubbabel, differ from each other as given by Afri- 
canus and Eusebius, above a whole century, and each 
falls nearly a century short of the true interval. In 
the proposed restoration of Baron Bunsen, six reigns 
out of twenty-two, and three dynasties out of five, 
have their length altered by mere conjecture, and half 
a century is added to the longer reckoning, so as to 
gain the desired result of making the reign of Shishak 
correspond with the scriptural date of Solomon's death. 
The recent discoveries in the remains of Assyria and 
Babylon have added greatly to the strength of this 
external evidence. Monuments disinterred, after being 



128 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

buried for ages, and deciphered slowly and laboriously 
out of languages, of which the very letters were pre- 
viously unknown, have risen up to bear witness to the 
truth and accuracy of the inspired narrative. Thus the 
exact amount of the tribute of gold, thirty talents, 
imposed by Sennacherib on the kingdom of Judah, has 
been deciphered from an Assyrian obelisk in the British 
Museum, in full agreement with the passage in the Book 
of Kings. The name of Belshazzar has, in like manner, 
been discovered in the monuments of Babylon, and a 
minute and delicate coincidence has been brought to 
light. It appears from the decipherment that he was a 
joint ruler with his own father, who seems to be the 
Labynetus, or Nabonadius, who fled to Borsippa ; and 
this explains the contrast, that Joseph was made second 
ruler in Egypt, but Daniel was promised to be " the 
third ruler in Babylon." 

(3.) The double account, in Kings and Chronicles, 
supplies strong additional evidence of the historical 
fidelity of the whole narrative. The writer of Chronicles, 
it is true, must have been familiar with the books of 
Kings; and many passages in both are -verbally the 
same. We cannot, therefore, ascribe to them the cha- 
racter of two testimonies wholly independent. The 
later account, however, differs in several important 
features from the first. It is confined almost entirely 
to the history of Judah, and overlooks the contemporary 
events in the kingdom of Israel. A prediction of 
Elijah is recorded ; but his miracles, and those of Elisha, 
which form one of the main features in the earlier 
history, are entirely unnoticed. No miraculous inci- 
dents occur, except the sudden infliction of leprosy on 
Uzziah, and the destruction of Sennacherib's army, and 
possibly the mutual destruction of the enemies of 
Jehoshaphat may be referred to the , same class. In 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 129 

general, we have a signal series of providential mercies 
and judgments in connection with prophetic messages ; 
but signs and wonders, in the strict sense of the words, 
do not appear. 

When we compare the two histories in detail, we find 
that the later one gives many incidents, of which there 
is no mention in the former, but which cohere intimately 
with the common portion of the narrative. Some of 
these notices are very minute, others refer to events 
of high importance. Of the former class are the notices 
that " Solomon went to Hamathzobah, and prevailed 
against it," and that, " he went to Eziongeber and to 
Eloth, at the sea side of the land of Edom." The book 
of Kings mentions the preparation of the navy, but 
not the visit itself of the king. Again, that Rehoboam 
built " cities of defence in Judah, Bethlehem, and Etam, 
and Tekoa, and Bethzur, and Shocp, and Adullam, 
and Gath, and Mareshah, and Ziph, and Adoraim, 
and Lachish, and Azekah, and Zorah, and Aijalon, 
and Hebron, fenced cities in Judah and in Benjamin." 
That one of these, Lachish, was a fenced city in the 
time of Hezekiah is mentioned both in Kings and 
Chronicles, and is recently confirmed by the Assyrian 
remains. Of the same character is the mention of the 
three chief wives of Rehoboam, and of seven of his 
sons ; the mention of Adnah, Johahanan, Eliada, and 
Jehozabad, the chief captains of Jehoshaphat ; the help 
given to Uzziah " against the Philistines, the Arabians 
that dwelt in Gurbaal, and the Mehunims," and the 
towers he built in Jerusalem " at the inner gate, and at 
the valley gate, and at the turning of the wall." Of the 
other class are the battle between Abijah and Jeroboam, 
with the immense loss of the Israelites ; the invasion 
and defeat of Zerah the Ethiopian ; the covenant in 
the fifteenth year of Asa ; the publication of the law 



130 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

under Jehoshaphat, and his victory over the confederates 
near Engedi ; the sin and judgment of Jehoram ; the 
repairs under Joash ; the murder of the prophet Zecha- 
riah ; the prosperity of Uzziah, and his leprosy ; the 
restoration, under Ahaz, of the captives of Judah ; the 
reformation and passover of Hezekiah; and the cap- 
tivity and repentance of Manasseh. On the other hand, 
the histories of Elijah and Elisha, and of the captivity 
of the ten tribes, and even most of the names of the 
kings of Israel, are passed by in silence. We have thus 
plainly two distinct testimonies to the portions common 
to both histories, and a direct confirmation, by this 
means, of their historical truth. 

(4.) Thirteen prophetic books belong to this period, 
and abound throughout with direct or indirect allusions 
to the history. In Isaiah we have mention of Uzziah, 
Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and allusions to all the 
main events of the three later reigns. In Jeremiah 
there is an equal fulness of reference to the reigns of 
Josiah, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah. Ezekiel 
dates all his prophecies by the years of Jeconiah's 
captivity, and refers to the chief events of Nebuchad- 
nezzar's reign. The book of Daniel ranges throughout 
the seventy years, from the beginning of the captivity 
to the third year of Cyrus. In Hosea there is mention 
of Joash, king of Israel ; in Amos of Jeroboam, son of 
Joash, and of an earthquake under his reign, also men- 
tioned by Zechariah. Obadiah alludes to the events at 
the beginning of the captivity, Micah to the reigns of 
Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Nahum to the invasion of 
Sennacherib, Habakkuk to the near approach of the 
Chaldean armies, and Zephaniah to the reign of Josiah, 
and the judgments then close at hand. These books 
contain also nearly thirty chapters of direct history, 
besides more than a hundred references and allusions to 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 131 

the events in Chronicles and Kings. The whole texture, 
indeed, of these prophecies is manifestly founded upon 
the truth of the narrative, which the historical books of 
the Bible contain. 

When the external evidence is so abundant and 
various, it is needless to dwell on the internal har- 
monies, indicative of truth, which the history itself 
supplies. The reality of these Jewish annals, from 
Solomon downward, is so clear, the links of connection 
with the prophecies and with heathen dynasties are so 
multiplied and indissoluble, and the chronology itself 
so complete, that scepticism must degenerate into 
insanity, before it can venture to deny their substantial 
truth. 

In one respect, however, this third period, from 
Solomon to the Captivity, is plainly contrasted with the 
period that follows. It includes, interwoven throughout 
the narrative, both miracles and miraculous predictions. 
Such are the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilomite, the 
rending of the altar at Bethel, the withering of Jeroboam's 
hand and its restoration, the prediction of Josiah by 
name three centuries before his birth, the death of the 
prophet from Judah, the famine under Elijah, the 
widow's cruse and the raising to life of her son, the 
fire from heaven at Carmel, and the abundant rain after 
Elijah's prayer, the vision at Horeb, the destruction of 
the two captains and their fifties, the rapture of Elijah, 
the parting of Jordan, the healing of the waters, the 
raising of the Shunamite's child, the healing of the 
pottage and multiplying of the loaves by Elisha, the 
blindness inflicted on the Syrians, the deliverance of 
Samaria, the man raised after Elisha's death, the cure 
of Naaman and the leprosy of G-ehazi, the leprosy of 
Uzziah, the reversal of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz, 
and the sudden destruction of the Assyrian army. The 

k 2 



132 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

historical footing is just as firm as in the later period ; 
but we are plainly within the borders of a sacred 
history, where the special presence of the God of Israel 
is revealed " in signs and wonders according to his. 
own will." 

III. From the Conquest to Solomon. 

This period, from the entrance of Canaan under 
Joshua to the accession of Solomon and the building of 
the temple, answers to the books of Joshua, Judges, the 
first and second of Samuel, and the first of Chronicles. 
Two of these, however, belong to the last forty years, or 
the reign of David alone. For the rest of the period, or 
about four centuries (if we accept the date in 1 Kings 
vi. 1), we have only one record of the events, in Joshua 
and the Book of Judges, and the first of Samuel. We 
have here, also, no collateral prophecies, though many of 
the Psalms refer to the events of David's reign, and the 
Book of Ruth is a short episode of the time of the 
Judges. There are no references either to Assyrian, 
Babylonian, or Egyptian reigns. The truth of the 
Bible history, in this period, rests therefore almost 
entirely on its internal consistency, and on the constant 
reception of these books, as sacred and authoritative 
records of their own history, by the whole Jewish nation 
from the earliest times. 

Now, first of all, it is plain that these books cohere 
most intimately with those which follow, both in their 
structure, style, and scale of composition, and in their 
external evidence. They form one continuous series of 
national Jewish history through a space of nine hun- 
dred years. They have been received by the Jews, 
without distinction, as the sacred annals of their nation 
from the death of their lawgiver till open prophecy was 
withdrawn. Even the scale on which the two portions 
are constructed is the same. The periods of time are 



THE HISTOKICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 133 

nearly equal, from Joshua to David's accession, and from 
that of Solomon to the fall of the temple ; and the col- 
lective length of Joshua, Judges, Euth, and the first of 
Samuel, and, again, of the second of Chronicles and first 
and second of Kings is also nearly the same. The only 
difference is that, in the earlier period, we have fuller 
details of its beginning and its close, and the middle is 
passed over more rapidly. But the general harmony, 
both in the scale and the style of the history, leaves 
instinctively the impression that they are parts of one 
consistent whole. 

In the next place, these books are national annals of 
such a nature, that their national reception, as true and 
genuine, is inconceivable on the hypothesis of their 
spurious origin. The Book of Joshua contains a record 
of the allotments of the twelve tribes and their separate 
possessions, on which the whole fabric of Jewish law 
and family inheritance would plainly depend. Along 
with this we have the singular economy, by which the 
tribe of Levi were dispersed among the others, and 
separate cities with their suburbs allotted for their 
exclusive possession. The six cities of refuge were 
a still more peculiar institution. It is incredible 
that the origin of such laws, so definite and peculiar, 
should have been forgotten within a few generations, or 
that there should have been no public and national 
record to confirm and sustain their authority. The 
first of Samuel, again, contains the origin of the kingly 
form of government ; and is linked throughout with 
three names so conspicuous and so dramatic in their 
interest, Samuel, Saul, and David, as to exclude the 
possibility of later fictions being accepted for real 
history. 

The Book of Judges is the only one to which these 
proofs of authority dp not apply; but here we have 



134 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

another quite distinct and equally strong. For this 
book, from first to last, is one record of national sin, 
humiliation, and punishment. It is the very last work 
by which an unprincipled forger could seek to gain 
public favour, and a place among the historians of his 
own people. From first to last it is like an expansion 
of the later song of Moses, a witness against the 
people on behalf of God, a humbling record of repeated 
and persevering apostasy. No external pledge of its 
veracity could be more decisive than this moral feature 
which runs through the whole narrative. 

Thirdly, these books abound, even more than those 
which follow them, with geographical details. This 
results at once from the nature of the Book of Joshua, as 
a national record of the inheritance of all the tribes of 
Israel. Nearly three hundred names of places occur in 
it, and a large proportion of them are linked with 
events locally defined in the subsequent history. 

Since, however, the Books of Joshua and Judges have 
been assailed, like the Pentateuch, by a school of 
negative criticism, and a late origin and fragmentary 
character assigned to them, it may be useful to point 
out briefly, with regard to each of them, the strong 
internal proofs of their historical reality. 

Now the Book of Joshua bears on its face a character 
of unity and completeness. It describes, in succession, 
the passage of Jordan, and four main steps by which the 
land was conquered ; the destruction of Jericho and of 
Ai, and the defeat of two successive confederacies in the 
south and the north. Then follows a detailed list or 
catalogue of twenty-nine kings who were subdued. 
After the conquest we have an account of the settlement 
of the tribes. There is, first, a retrospective statement 
of the territory assigned by Moses himself to two tribes 
and. a half on the east of Jordan. There is then a de- 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 135 

scription of the boundaries and possessions of the two 
leading tribes of Judah and Ephraim, including the 
other half tribe of Manasseh. We have next a state- 
ment of the districts allotted to the remaining seven 
tribes, Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, 
Naphtali, and Dan. After this are mentioned, in order, 
the appointment of the cities of refuge and the selection 
of the forty-eight cities for the Levites out of all the 
tribes. There is, next, the dismissal of the two tribes 
and a half to their own possessions on the east, and the 
controversy which it occasioned, from their erection of 
an altar of witness near the fords of Jordan. Last of 
all, there are the two successive interviews of Joshua 
with the people before his death ; the first, apparently, at 
Shiloh, where the tabernacle was set up ; and the other 
at Shechem, sacred by the memory of their forefather, 
where the covenant was solemnly renewed. The his- 
tory closes with three events, all marking the termina- 
tion of a distinct era — the death of Joshua, the burial 
in Shechem of the bones of Joseph, which had been 
brought out of Egypt, and the death of Eleazar the 
high-priest. 

Again, the composition seems fixed by internal 
marks to the generation after Joshua's death, and agrees 
well with the supposition that Phinehas, the son of 
Eleazar, was its author. The words, " until we were 
passed over," suit best with the view that the 
writer actually took part in the first entrance into 
the land. So again the statement about Eahab, " She 
dwelleth in Israel unto this day," naturally implies that 
it was written during her lifetime. Her age was 
probably less than fifty at Joshua's death, and she 
might easily survive him twenty 'or thirty years. On 
the other hand, the conquest of Leshem by the Danites 
took place after the death of Joshua, as we learn from 



136 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

the fuller account in Judges. It was, however, during 
the lifetime of Phinehas, since a still later event, the 
conflict with the Benjamites, is said to have happened 
during his high-priesthood. The last event mentioned 
in the Book of Joshua is the death of Eleazar, whom 
Phinehas succeeded in that office. 

The separate statements, again, are confirmed indi- 
rectly in every part of the book by later allusions of 
the most incidental kind. The first is the charge to the 
Reubenites and Gradites to share the campaign with 
their brethren (i. 12 — 18), which is referred to again, 
iv. 12, 13, and corresponds with the mention of their 
dismissal to their own possessions at the close of the 
work. The mention of the " stone of Bohan the son of 
Reuben," in the border line of Judah and Benjamin, 
seems probably an indirect allusion to the same event. 
The most natural explanation would be, that it was a 
stone or pillar, set up by one of the leading Reubenites 
to mark his participation in the campaign of Israel, 
since it was placed not far from Grilgal and the banks of 
the Jordan. The history of Rahab and the spies is 
confirmed by the mention of her, vi. 25, as still alive 
when the book was written, and by the statement in 
St. Matthew, that she was married to Salmon, and the 
mother of Boaz. The place where the miracle was 
wrought, in staying the waters of the Jordan, is said to 
be near the city of Adam, beside Zaretan ; and the latter 
is mentioned incidentally in the Book of Kings, with 
reference to the brazen vessels of Solomon's temple. 
" In the plain of Jordan did the king cast them, in the 
clay ground between Succoth and Zarthan." The place, 
Grilgal, where the stones were set up, and the Israelites 
encamped after the passage, besides other passages where 
it is named, is referred to by Micah in a prophetic 
appeal to Israel after seven hundred years. " my 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 137 

people, remember what Balak king of Moab consulted, 
and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from 
Shittim unto Gilgal ; that ye may know the righteous- 
ness of the Lord" (Mic. vi. 5). The curse of Joshua 
upon Jericho is mentioned, when it was fulfilled after 
six hundred years, but only in one passing sentence in 
the Book of Kings. " In his days (Ahab) did Hiel the 
Bethelite build Jericho : he laid the foundation thereof 
in Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in 
his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the 
Lord which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun." The 
sin of Achan is alluded to in the genealogy in Chronicles. 
" The sons of Oarmi, Achan the troubler of Israel, who 
transgressed in the thing accursed." The valley of 
Achor is also mentioned again, by Hosea, after seven 
hundred years, and in the most incidental way. " I 
will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley 
of Achor for a door of hope ; and she shall sing there 
as in the days of her youth, when she came up out of 
the land of Egypt." The mention of the blessings on 
Mount Gerizini, (viii. 33,) agrees with the high venera- 
tion shown to it by the Samaritans in later times, and 
its selection for the site of a temple to rival the temple 
at Jerusalem. The narrative respecting the Gibeonites 
is confirmed by the later mention of their destruction 
by Saul " in his zeal for the children of Israel and 
Judah," and the retributive judgment on the people. 
" There was a famine in the days of David three years, 
year after year, and David inquired of the Lord. And 
the Lord answered, It is for Saul and for his bloody 
house because he slew the Gribeonites." Gibeon is also 
named as the place where the tabernacle was pitched 
in the times of David and Solomon, before the build- 
ing of the temple, where Solomon received a vision, 
1 Chron. xvi. 39; 2 Chron. i. 3, 6, 13. Beeroth is 



138 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

named among the five cities of the Gibeonites, included 
in the lot of Benjamin. The murderers of Ishbosheth 
were sons of Rimmon a Beerothite, and we have this 
incidental notice : " For Beeroth also was reckoned to 
Benjamin, and the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and were 
sojourners there unto this day." No further light is 
thrown on this incident, so simply recorded as to 
speak its own reality. Once in Nehemiah, and there 
only, we find mention of their new residence among 
the towns of Benjamin after the captivity. " The 
children of Benjamin dwelt at Michmash and Aija and 
Bethel, and their villages ; at Anathoth, Nob, Ananiah, 
Hazor, Ramah, Gittaim, Hadad, Zeboim." Of the five 
confederate kings, two of the towns, Jerusalem and 
Hebron, continue to this day; and a third, Lachish, 
is prominent in the history to the time of Sennacherib, 
and his siege of it seems depicted in the sculptures 
recently found. Bethhoron, the upper and the nether, 
are also prominent places in the later history, and their 
site is still identified by travellers. Azekah is named 
again in the war with the Philistines, who pitched 
" between Shochoh and Azekah " before David's victory. 
Libnah, one of the cities destroyed by Joshua, occurs 
in two incidental notices in Kings. First, in the reign 
of Jehoram. " Yet Edom revolted from under the 
hand of Judah unto this day. Then Libnah revolted 
at the same time." It was a city of the priests, Josh, 
xxi. 13, and its revolt might be occasioned by Jehoram's 
open apostasy, through his affinity with Ahab. One 
wife, also, of Josiah, was " a daughter of Jeremiah of 
Libnah." (2 Kings xxiii. 31.) The list of the thirty- 
one kings in Joshua, chap. xii. 9 — 24, by the admission 
of negative critics themselves, " is either a contem- 
poraneous, or what is equivalent to a contemporaneous 
authority." 



THE HISTOKICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 139 

The confirmations of the local notices that follow, in 
the later history, are too numerous to be specified. 
The following are a few examples : — ' ' The children of 
Israel expelled not the Geshurites nor the Maacha- 
thites" (xiii. 13) ; and Absalom "fled for refuge to 
Talmai, son of Ammihud, king of Geshur." Hebron 
and its environs were given to Caleb, and Maon and 
Carmel are named next to it in the list of the cities of 
Judah ; and Nabal was " of the house of Caleb," and 
is called " a man in Maon, whose possessions were in 
Carmel." Ziklag is named amongst " the uttermost 
cities of Judah, towards the coast of Edom southwards ;" 
and the history of David's sojourn there answers per- 
fectly to the description. Shochoh and Azekah are 
joined together in the list, (xv. 35,) and also in the 
account of the Philistine army, 1 Sam. xvii. 1. Achzib 
is found in the list, (xv. 44,) and no mention of it occurs 
till after seven centuries, in Micah i. 14, " The house of 
Achzib shall be a he to the kings of Israel." The 
same is true of Mareshah ; while Adullam, a third place 
in the list and in the prophecy, occurs repeatedly in 
David's history, and its caves are known and explored 
to this day. Giloh is known only by one later allusion, 
but in connection with a striking and public event. 
" And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, 
David's counsellor, from his • city, even from Giloh, 
while he offered sacrifices." Gezer is connected with 
two notices, at long intervals, but mutually consistent. 
" Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that 
dwelt in Gezer, but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer 
among them." (Judges i. 29.) " And this is the reason 
of the levy which king Solomon raised — to build the 
house of the Lord, and his own house, and Millo, and 
the walls of Jerusalem and Hezer and Megiddo and 
Gezer. For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and 



140 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

taken G-ezer, and burnt it with fire, and slew the 
Canaanites that dwelt therein, and given it for a 
present to his daughter, Solomon's wife." The cities 
and villages of the tribe of Simeon are reported, in 
Chronicles, with a very slight change in two or three 
names ; but two facts are added, of an extension in the 
days of Hezekiah, when some of them " went to the 
entrance of Gredor, the east side of the valley, to seek 
pasture for their flocks," and others " went to Mount 
Seir, and smote the rest of the Amalekites that escaped, 
and dwelt there unto this day." Bethlehem, again, 
is mentioned in the tribe of Zebulun : and besides the 
contrast implied in the two names Bethlehem Ephratah 
or Bethlehem Judah, applied to David's birthplace, we 
are told that " Ibzan a Bethlehemite, judged Israel, 
and was buried at Bethlehem ;" and his place between 
Jephthah the Grileadite and Elon the Zebulonite shows 
that a northern Bethlehem is intended, while the other 
is called, for distinction, a few chapters later, Bethlehem 
Judah. 

The marks of unity in the Book of Judges are equally 
plain. It begins with a review of the state of the 
Israelites at the time of the conquest, and after Joshua's 
death, which forms the historical basis of the later 
narrative. It then gives a moral summary of the whole 
period, which it describes as one series of national 
apostasies, followed by merciful deliverance. We have 
then a brief, but connected history of the whole period, 
from the death of Joshua to that of Samson, after whom 
the double series of prophets and kings began, with 
Samuel, Saul, and David. The book then reverts to the 
earlier part of the whole period, and describes the first 
public entrance of idolatry, in the tribe of Dan, and 
the narrow escape of the tribe of Benjamin from extinc- 
tion, through unnatural vice and crime. This event is 



THE HISTOEICAL TEUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 141 

alluded to long after, by the prophet Hosea : " They 
have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of 
Gibeah." " Israel, thou hast sinned from the days 
of Gibeah : there they stood : the battle in Gibeah 
against the children of iniquity did not overtake them." 
By these episodes, the practical aim of the whole 
narrative is brought out at last more clearly into view ; 
that a firmer government was needed for the welfare 
of the people — a king whom the Lord himself should 
provide for them. " In those days there was no king 
in Israel : every man did that which was right in his 
own eyes." 

The allusions to the history of this period in the later 
Scriptures are not few, and some of them are so indirect, 
as to lend it all the confirmation of an undesigned coin- 
cidence. The statement about Gezer, (i. 29,) is con- 
firmed by the mention of it as conquered by Pharaoh 
in the time of Solomon. The family of Othniel is 
traced downwards in Chronicles for several generations. 
The overthrow of the Canaanites is alluded to in 
Psalm lxxxiii. : " Do unto them as to Sisera, as to 
Jabin, at the brook of Kiskon, which perished at Endor, 
and became as dung for the earth." So also the victory 
over the Midianites : " Make their nobles like Oreb 
and Zeeb, and all their princes like Zebah and like 
Zalmunna." The triumphal song of Deborah lends its 
language to Psalm lxviii. : " Thou hast led captivity 
captive." The truthfulness of the history, in all the 
local circumstances of the battle, and the ravine of 
Kishon, has been shown, in a most graphic manner 
in a recent work on Palestine, " The Land and the 
Bible." The successive deliverances are appealed to 
by Samuel, when the people chose Saul for their king. 
" He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the 
host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, 



142 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and into the hand of the king of Moab. And the 
Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan (Barak), and Jeph- 
thah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand 
of your enemies." Again, in Isaiah ix. 4, " Thou hast 
broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his 
shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of 
Midian." Ophrah, the city of Gideon, is named again in 
the account of the Philistine incursions. " The spoilers 
went out of the camp of the Philistines in three com- 
panies, and one company turned to the way to Ophrah, 
to the land of Shual." Penuel is mentioned among the 
cities which were fortified by Jeroboam. Succoth, in 
Joshua, is placed in the valley. The Psalmist speaks 
of " the valley of Succoth," and the brazen vessels of the 
temple were cast in the plain " between Succoth and 
Zaretan." "The pillar that was in Shechem" where 
Abimelech was made king, answers to the " great 
stone " by the sanctuary of the Lord which Joshua 
had set up for a memorial, and would seem especially 
suited for the scene of a royal contract. The land of 
Tob is named in the history of Jephthah, as the scene 
of his exile, and the men of Ishtob are among the 
Syrians hired by the Ammonites in the time of David. 
A great slaughter of the Ephraimites, forty-two thousand, 
was made by Jephthah near the fords on the east of 
Jordan ; and a wood of Ephraim, probably named from 
this conspicuous calamity of the tribe, since it was not 
in their territory, is the scene of Absalom's defeat, also 
on the east of Jordan, not far from Mahanaim, or in the 
land of Grilead. Timnath is placed on the border of 
Judah, near to Ekron, and is named, in the account of 
Samson, as a city of Philistines. The expedition of 
the Danites, after being mentioned briefly in Joshua, 
is recorded more fully in Judges. Bethrehob, where 
Laish lay, occurs in 2 Sam. x. 6, where the Syrians of 



THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 143 

Beth-rehob are hired by the Ammonites. Dan, the 
city, is mentioned in the numbering of the people under 
David, and more generally, in descriptions of the limits 
of the country " from Dan to Beersheba." The conflict 
with the Benjamites, for the crime of the men of 
Gribeah, is named repeatedly in Hosea, and it was the 
city of Saul, where seven of his sons were put to death, 
because of his cruelty to the Gribeonites. " We will 
; hang them up in Gribeah of Saul, whom the Lord did 
choose." The resemblance of the conduct of the 
Israelites, when sin was suspected in the Eeubenites, 
and when it actually occurred among the Benjamites, 
illustrates the reality of the whole history. For, 
though separated in appearance by the whole period 
of the judges, the real interval of time was short; 
since Phinehas, who took part in the first message, 
was still alive, and high priest, when the Israelites 
assembled at Mizpeh. The sense of national unity was 
still strong, and had not been weakened by the declen- 
sions and apostasies of three hundred years. 

The chronology of this period offers some difficulty. 
If all the separate intervals are successive, the total 
from the Exodus to Solomon will be about six hundred 
years, and the incidental mention of four hundred and 
fifty years for the time of the Judges in Acts xiii. seems 
to confirm this view. On the other hand, 1 Kings vi. 1 
assigns four hundred and eighty years for the interval 
from the Exodus to the fourth of Solomon, and this 
seems to agree better with the genealogies, and with 
the mention of three hundred years from the conquest 
to Jephthah's war with Ammon. But even the shorter 
reckoning disagrees with Baron Bunsen's hypothesis 
on the Egyptian place of the Exodus, and the lengths 
of the dynasties. He has therefore devised a singular 
expedient for setting it aside altogether. The Book of 



144 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Judges, he affirms, is not a history at all, but only has 
a historical basis. "It is an Epos, midway between 
Mythos or fable, and genuine history. It is a strictly 
popular epic in shape, by generations of forty years." 
When we inquire wherein this poetical character consists, 
we find that it is solely in the substitution of four false 
dates, three of forty, and one of eighty years, for what 
he supposes to be the correct intervals, three of seven, 
and one of ten years. There is happily a simple test, 
by which every one may judge whether the Bible Epos, 
or the " history" framed out of it by this simple process, 
agrees best with "the fundamental principles of his- 
torical criticism." According to Judges vi. — ix., Gideon, 
before his call, was " the least in his father's house," and 
Ins eldest son Jether was a youth of eighteen or twenty 
years. The country " was in quiet forty years in the 
days of Gideon." After his victory " he had many 
wives," and in all seventy children. After his death 
Abimelech, one of them, slew all the others ; and Jotham, 
the youngest, alone escaped, and made the celebrated 
address to the men of Shechem from the top of Mount 
Gerizim. Now, according to Baron Bunsen's revised 
version, by which the poetical element is removed, 
Gideon survived his victory just ten years. So that 
within that space sixty sons at least must have been 
born to him ; Abimelech must have been less than 
ten years old when he slew his infant brothers ; and 
Jotham, the youngest, a mere babe, when he addressed 
the Shechemites from Mount Gerizim, and " then ran 
away and fled to Beer." Clearly it is not the Bible 
narrative, but the modern substitute, which has here 
the best claim to be styled an epical fiction. The 
superiority of the sacred text to the learned criticism 
which assails it, and pretends to detect its errors, could 
scarcely receive a more striking illustration. For in 



THE HISTORICAL TEUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 145 

all particulars, except the chronology, the book is 
untouched by the ordeal of criticism, and no smell of 
fire has passed upon it. 

IV. The history of the Pentateuch. 

The Books of Moses contain a connected narrative 
from Creation to the conquest of Canaan, and are by 
far the oldest written history now extant. In conse- 
quence of their antiquity, no direct materials for com- 
parison exist, except the half-deciphered remains of 
Egyptian monuments brought to light within the last 
thirty years. The direct evidence of their authenticity 
is of the strongest kind. They have been accepted as 
the writings of Moses by the followers of three different 
and rival creeds — the Christians, the Samaritans, and 
the Jews, as far back in each case as their own history 
extends, or any record of their belief can be found. 
Their character, as the code of laws of a whole nation, 
entering into the minutest details of daily life, and 
involving the whole constitution of the state, and the 
local arrangements of all the tribes, would make a late 
forgery incredible and inconceivable. Apart from its 
record of miracles, and its views of the Divine character 
and holiness, which are so opposed to the whole spirit 
of an unbelieving philosophy ; there can be no doubt 
that its claims to the title of true and credible history 
would have been received without the least difficulty, 
and owned to rest upon the most solid grounds. Since, 
however, the tests which can be directly applied are 
few, and at present ambiguous and controverted in the 
conclusions drawn from them, we are bound to apjoly 
the maxims of the inductive philosophy. These books 
contain a narrative of the first out of six successive 
periods of sacred history, four in the Old, and two in 
the New Testament. The general character of the 
series, from first to last, is the same in its main features, 

L 



146 THE BIBLE AND MODERN" THOUGHT. 

though with important varieties of a secondary kind. 
Each portion seems to grow, by a natural development, 
out of those which precede. The mutual references, 
from first to last, are very numerous. We have one 
summary of the Pentateuch at the close of Joshua ; a 
second, of the period of Exodus and the Judges, in 
Samuel ; a third and a fourth, from Abraham to David 
or to the Captivity, in the Psalms and Nehemiah ; a | 
genealogical summary in the Gospels of St. Matthew 
and St. Luke ; a historical summary, from Abraham, in 
the discourse of Stephen ; a second, from the Exodus, in 
that of St. Paul at Antioch ; and a final outline from 
the beginning of Genesis to the Captivity, in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews. 

Now in all the five later periods, the truth of the 
sacred history, as we have seen, is confirmed by a large 
variety of external and internal evidence. The tests 
are more various and abundant in the later portions, I 
and in proportion as they are multiplied, the evidence 
of reality becomes the more decisive. The period from j 
Joshua to Solomon is internally consistent, but furnishes 
hardly any date for comparison, either with heathen 
dynasties, or between parallel records of the same in- 
terval. Where these do occur, in the reign of David, in 
2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, and the Psalms, the marks 
of consistency multiply in the same proportion. The 
period of the Kings supplies additional tests. We have 
two reports in Kings and Chronicles. We have thirteen 
books of prophecy belonging to the same interval, 
and we have the mention of eighteen or twenty foreign 
kings. The only result is to multiply the evidences 
of chronological accuracy and historical truth. The 
next period brings us within the early times of classic | 
history. The minuteness and copiousness of the details 
is here carried to an extreme. There is no presence of 



THE HISTOEICAL TEUTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 147 

miracles, to awaken the doubts of sceptics, and the 
agreement with the best heathen record of the Persian 
reigns is complete. Similar confirmations are found in 
the history of the New Testament ; and especially in 
the Book of Acts, its latest portion ; which belongs to 
the brightest days of the Roman empire, and is the 
period in which the elements for comparison are the 
most abundant, in historical works, inscriptions, and 
existing remains. 

The conclusion which results from this course of 
induction is plain. Wherever the tests are abundant, 
they confirm in the strongest manner the truth of the 
Bible history. We are justified, therefore, and even 
compelled by the laws of sound reason, to admit its 
truth, even in that earliest period, where from its 
antiquity it seems to stand alone in unapproachable 
dignity and pre-eminence. At least we are bound to 
accept its prima facie claim to be real and genuine 
history; till counter evidence can be found, so clear, 
distinct, and decisive, as to outweigh the collective 
strength of all those evidences of simplicity, consistency, 
and truth, which meet the eye of the careful student 
through all its later course of fifteen hundred years. 
How far the revised chronology of the time of the 
Judges, of which a specimen has just been given ; or 
hypotheses on the Hyksos period of Egypt, which 
Lepsius reckons at five, Bunsen at nine, and De Rouge 
at fourteen centuries, can effect this counterpoise, and, 
separating the early books of the Bible from their inti- 
mate organic union with the later history, can reduce 
them to Epos or Mythos, that is, narratives mainly or 
wholly fabulous, may be safely left to the judgment of 
every candid and thoughtful mind. 1 



Note C. Bunsen's Chronology of Egypt. 

L 2 



148 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 

Modern rationalism, in its criticisms on the Bible 
histories, adopts usually a laborious process of circular 
reasoning. Unbelief is assumed in the premises, and of 
course reappears inevitably in the conclusion. It is 
affirmed, first of all, that miracles and real predictions 
are incredible and impossible. By the help of this doc- 
trine the Bible is dissected, parted into imaginary frag- 
ments, resolved into loose traditions of some later age, 
or completely dissolved into mere legend. Immense 
labour is bestowed on this double process of dissection 
or sublimation ; and the result is then announced, that 
criticism has proved the history to be merely common 
events distorted by tradition, or the clothing of some 
abstract ideas of truth. This is the course adopted, 
alike by Strauss in the New, and Ewald and many 
others in the Old Testament. The same assumption is 
made openly in both cases, that a supernatural revela- 
tion, accompanied by miracles and prophecies, is " nei- 
ther a fact nor a possibility." From infidel premises, of 
course, there can be reached no other than an infidel 
conclusion. 

There are, on the contrary, only two questions which 
need an affirmative reply, that our acceptance of the 
Scriptures as a Divine revelation may be a reasonable 
faith. Has the Bible, setting aside in the first place 



THE MIRACLES OP THE BIBLE. 149 

the supernatural elements involved in it, every other 
sign and evidence of historical truth ? And next, do the 
miracles or prophecies themselves agree in character 
with their alleged design, as the credentials to a series 
of Divine revelations ? The former question has now 
been briefly answered. It remains to inquire, next, 
whether the miracles satisfy the required conditions. 
These may be reduced, perhaps, to these four heads — ■ 
a wise parsimony, general publicity, a consistent plan, 
and a moral purpose. 

I. Miracles, to fulfil their great object of attesting and 
confirming messages from God, must retain an unusual 
and exceptional character. When they become habitual 
with any regular law of recurrence, they cease to be 
miraculous, and only add one more element to the im- 
mense number of natural laws. If they become frequent, 
but. remain irregular and unaccountable, they will cease 
to startle or surprise, or fulfil any moral purpose, and 
will come to be classed with shooting stars, or similar 
unexplained phenomena of the natural world. There is 
no conceivable limit to the invention of mere legends ; 
but real miracles, it is plain, have strict and severe con- 
ditions to which they must conform. If too obscure 
and isolated, they will be insufficient for their professed 
object. If too numerous or constant, they forfeit the 
character of signs and wonders, and must lose a great 
part of their influence over the minds of those who may 
witness them. A wise parsimony is one main feature 
which must be expected, therefore, to characterize their 
actual occurrence. 

Two causes have tended to create a false impression 
with reference to the number of the miracles in the 
Bible history. The first is its extreme compression, and 
the vast period of time which it embraces from first 
to last. The other is the religious tone of the whole 



150 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

narrative, so that common events, where there is no 
proper miracle, are ascribed habitually to the power and 
providence of Grod. When these two circumstances 
have been duly weighed, it will be seen with surprise, 
how sparing, according to the Bible itself, has been the 
use of miracles in the Divine economy. For the ques- 
tion is not what proportion they bear to the facts ex- 
pressed in the record, but to those which are implied in 
it. Even without any inspired testimony, we know that 
the course of nature must have continued from day to 
day, and from generation to generation. But if miracles 
are given to attest and confirm Divine messages, the 
mere omission and silence of the record amounts almost 
to a full proof of their non-occurrence. 

The first period of Bible history reaches from the 
Creation to the Deluge, and occupies a space of more 
than sixteen hundred years. The record is very 
brief, but we may fairly assume, for the reason just 
named, that the chief events really miraculous have 
been included. Now these are only five or six in 
number — the temptation of the serpent in Paradise ; the 
expulsion of Adam and Eve, with the cherubic sword of 
fire at the east of the garden ; the vision to Cain after 
Abel's sacrifice ; the translation of Enoch ; the mixture, 
perhaps, of the sons of Grod with the daughters of men, 
and birth of the Nephilim ; and lastly, the Deluge 
itself, and its attendant circumstances. Six instances of 
miraculous interference, three at the very beginning, 
two during the course, and one at the close, of nearly 
two whole millennia of the world's history, are surely 
no lavish and extravagant amount of supernatural inter- 
ference. 

The second period reaches from the Flood to the 
Descent into Egypt, and is a space of six — but according 
to the Septuagint, of fourteen centuries. Only three main 



THE MIEACLES OF THE BIBLE. 151 

events of a public or a national kind occur in it, which are 
miracles, or quasi-miraculous ; the confusion of tongues 
at the Tower of Babel, the destruction of the Cities of 
the Plain, and the dreams of Pharaoh, with the seven 
years of plenty, and seven of famine. Even of these, the 
last belongs less naturally to miracles than to supernatural 
prophecy. But since the foundations of a new economy 
were now being laid, there is a considerable number 
of visions recorded, of a more private and personal 
kind. We meet with about ten instances in the life of 
Abraham, three or four in that of Isaac, and eight in 
that of Jacob. Most of them are simply dreams or 
visions, and only three or four involve a distinct angelic 
appearance. This, also, is a frugal provision of signs 
and wonders for the first foundation of an economy 
of grace, by which all the families of the earth were to 
be blessed, and which was to endure to a thousand 
generations. 

The third period is that of the Exodus and the Con- 
quest, and lasted about forty-five years. It was the 
season when the Law was given and written revelation 
first began. It forms, therefore, an exception to the 
character of the previous and the following periods, 
with regard to the number and frequency of the signs 
and wonders which attested the new economy, and that 
written law which was to be the foundation of all the 
later messages of Grod. All the other miracles of the 
four thousand years of the Old Testament are scarcely 
so numerous or so striking, as those which are crowded 
into the limits of this single generation, though com- 
paratively modern in its date ; since Abraham, and 
not Moses, is about midway in the Old Testament 
history. 

The fourth period, from the Conquest to Solomon, 
occupies considerably more than four hundred years. 



152 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

But the miracles recorded in its course are compara- 
tively few. The chief are, the angelic vision at 
Bochim, the call of Gideon, the double miraculous sign 
of the fleece, the angelic vision to Manoah, the wonders 
of Samson's strength, and its loss when his vow was 
broken, the vision to Samuel when a child, the judg- 
ments on the Philistines and the men of Bethshemesh, 
the prophesying of Saul, the thunder and hail after 
Samuel's rebuke of the people, the appearance of Samuel 
to Saul after his death, and the infliction of the pesti- 
lence and its removal : or scarcely more than twelve 
through a period of nearly five centuries. 

In the fifth period, from Solomon to the Captivity, 
besides the number of prophets who were raised up, 
and whose writings are part of the canon, the direct 
miracles are more numerous. About forty distinct 
examples of them are recorded during this interval of 
four hundred and thirty years, and two or three others 
in the history of Daniel at Babylon. The signs and 
wonders approach in their striking character to those 
of the Exodus ; but they are spread over a longer in- 
terval, while the others are all concentrated within 
one instead of ten or twelve generations. In the last 
period of the Old Testament, after the Return, and till 
the Birth of our Lord, there is an entire absence of all 
recorded miracles through more than five hundred 
years. 

The whole range of New Testament history is only 
sixty-six years, or two generations. It begins with 
miracles in the narrative of our Lord's infancy, and 
they are found in the very last chapter, after the ship- 
wreck of the Apostle, and before his arrival at Rome. 
They do not, then, shrink or disappear from the history, 
when it comes into contact with the broad daylight of 
Greek and Roman civilization. On the other hand, 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 153 

there are twenty-eight years of this period, or nearly 
one half of the whole, which are passed by in silence, 
and where the absence of miracles is clearly implied. 
This same feature, also, continues to mark the ministry 
of the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. The contrast 
is brought out plainly in the fourth Gospel in the words 
of the Jews, " John did no miracle, but whatsoever 
John spake of this man was true." 

Thus, on a review of the whole, we find that the 
Bible itself teaches clearly that miracles were a rare 
exception, and not the ordinary rule of Divine Provi- 
dence, and this even among the chosen people. From 
the purpose expressly assigned to them we may infer, 
with great probability, that all such departures from 
the usual course of nature, of a signal character, would 
be put on record ; and the whole number may be rather 
more than one hundred throughout the course of four 
thousand years, from the fall of Adam to the coming of 
the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven. The first 
condition, then, of true miracles, a wise parsimony 
in their exhibition, is clearly fulfilled in the Bible 
history. 

II. Again, miracles, in order to fulfil their office, as 
proofs of a Divine message or commission, require a 
character of publicity. To use the words of St. Paul 
before Agrippa, it would contradict their great object, 
if they were " done in a corner," and there were no 
adequate witnesses of their reality. 

This condition, again, is satisfied in the highest 
degree by the main body of the miracles, both of the 
Old and New Testament. The Flood, the confusion of 
tongues, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the 
plenty and famine of Egypt, were events of the most 
public kind, and on the largest scale. A public asser- 
tion of them, unless very remote in time, would 



154 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

involve a speedy and complete exposure of fraud and 
falsehood. The plagues of Egypt, the pillar of cloud 
and fire, the daily manna, the passage of the Red Sea, 
the supply of water from the rock, have all the utmost 
possible degree of publicity. The same is true of the 
passage of the Jordan, and is there additionally striking 
because of the memorial appointed at the time, to be 
a public testimony of the occurrence to later genera- 
tions. The same character applies to several of Elijah 
and Elisha's miracles, and to the later overthrow of the 
Assyrian army. In the New Testament it is the common 
feature of all our Lord's miracles, and most of those of the 
apostles. The appeal is repeatedly made by our Lord 
himself, as well as his disciples, to this character of the 
miraculous works. (John xv. 22-24 ; v. 36 ; xi. 47, 48 ; 
xii. 37; xviii. 20. Acts ii. 22; iii. 16; iv. 21, 16; 
v. 16 ; x. 37, 38 ; xix. 12. Eom. xv. 19.) 

But while this character of publicity belongs to the 
Bible miracles, as a whole, there are many exceptions, 
in which they are exhibited in the light of a special 
privilege, and witnessed by a few only. Such were the 
visions to the three patriarchs, the appearance in the 
bush to Moses, the messages of the angel to Grideon, 
and afterwards to Manoah and his wife, the support of 
Elijah by ravens, and again by the widow of Zarephath, 
and some others in the Old Testament. In the Gospels 
we see that our Lord, in several cases, enjoined silence 
on those who were healed, or chose out a few witnesses 
only. Thus three apostles alone were allowed to be 
present at the raising of Jairus' daughter, and at the 
Transfiguration; and the blind man at Bethsaida was 
led aside out of the town before his eyes were opened, 
and then charged not to tell it to any one in the town. 
The resurrection of our Lord holds in this respect 
a middle place. The number of witnesses was large, 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 155 

for " lie was seen of above five hundred brethren at 
once ;" and the appearances were numerous, for no less 
than ten are distinctly put on record, and they reached 
through an interval of forty days ; but the privilege was 
reserved, in every case, for disciples alone. It is clear, 
then, that a second law intersects, and in some cases 
supersedes, the general rule of publicity ; and that the 
moral aspect of such manifestations, as a special privi- 
lege which must not be wasted upon senseless and 
stubborn minds, mingles with and modifies their fun- 
damental character, as "a sign to them who do not 
believe." 1 Cor. xiv. 22. 

III. A third feature, which may be expected to dis- 
tinguish real miracles, designed ;to fulfil some great 
object of the Divine government from the mere chance 
inventions of falsehood, or a fortuitous series of mere 
legends, invented by the caprice of imaginative minds, 
is the presence of a consistent plan in their actual dis- 
tribution and occurrence. 

It is common with sceptical writers to represent 
miracles, as maintained by the advocates of Christianity, 
to be " something at variance with nature and law," 
" arbitrary interposition " and acts of mere caprice, in 
" marvellous discordance from all law." But this is 
a gross misconception. The term law, instead of being 
confined exclusively to physical relations, is borrowed 
from a higher field of thought, the deliberate acts of 
intelligent wills, and is only transferred, by analogy, 
to the mere regularity of physical changes. Moral 
laws have a better claim to the title than the physical ; 
the latter have borrowed it from them, and are merely, 
so to speak, under-tenants at will. The highest and 
noblest kind of law, of which we can have a conception, 
consists of the moral and spiritual maxims by which 
the Supreme Lawgiver, the Only Wise God, disposes 



156 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

his own acts in the government of the creatures He has 
made. Viewed in this light, while miracles are either 
real or seeming infractions of some physical law of 
material sequence, they are, in every case, fulfilments 
of a higher law of Grod's moral government ; which may 
be discerned in them, more or less clearly, when the 
understanding has been purified by faith and prayer, 
and has learned to meditate with reverence on the ways 
of the Most High. 

The question between unbelief and Christian faith 
seems capable, then, of being brought here to a distinct 
and definite issue. If alleged miracles are the mere 
inventions of imposture, or the dreams of inventive 
fancy, we might reasonably infer that they would 
be ascribed most plentifully to periods remote from 
historic knowledge, and diminish gradually as we come 
within the region of authentic history, tested by col- 
lateral evidence and a well defined chronology. On 
the other hand, if they are the real credentials of Divine 
messages, we should expect them to abound at marked 
eras of revelation, when there is some conspicuous un- 
folding of the Divine will ; and to be more sparingly 
exhibited in those intervals, whether earlier or later 
in time, when there is merely a continuation of former 
degrees of light, and no sign of any new message from 
God to man. 

Now it will be plain, on the least inquiry, that this 
latter character, and not the former, belongs to the 
whole series of miracles which the Bible records. 
Three or four miraculous events marked the close of 
the brief economy of Paradise, and introduced the 
sixteen centuries of the antediluvian world. One 
miracle alone occurs during their long course — the 
translation of Enoch ; for the marriage of the sons of 
Grod with the daughters of men is either simply a natural 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 15 7 

event, or else a marvel of sin, and not an interference 
of G-od. The Deluge and its attendant wonders ushered 
in a new dispensation, and a formal covenant with 
mankind in their new head. Two signal acts of judg- 
ment mark the long period from the Flood to the 
Exodus, when iniquity had reached its height, in the 
building of Babel, and the cities of the plain ; but all 
the other wonders are of a more private kind, connected 
with the persons of the three patriarchs alone, in whom 
the foundation was laid for all the later revelations of 
the Divine will. But with the Exodus a new dispensa- 
tion began. The revealed will of Grod was now, for 
the first time, embodied in a written and permanent 
form. The books of Moses, which were written by 
the^ great lawgiver of the Jews, form the key to all 
their later history, and are the basement story of the 
whole edifice of revealed religion. Here, then, we 
meet in the sacred narrative with a profuse display of 
miraculous agency, contrasted equally with earlier and 
with later ages. This contrast is boldly drawn out 
in the law itself. " For ask now of the days which 
are past, which were before thee, since the day that 
G-od created man upon the earth, and from one side 
of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any 
such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard 
like it. Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking 
out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and 
live ? Or hath God assayed 4 to go and take him a nation 
from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by 
signs, by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, 
and by a stretched out arm, and by great terror, ac- 
cording to all that the Lord your God did for you in 
Egypt before your eyes ?" This era of marvels lasts 
throughout the forty years of the Exodus, till Jordan 
is crossed, the book of the law complete, and the chosen 



158 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

people have entered into their promised inheritance. 
Its close is then hardly less marked than its commence- j 
ment. The manna ceases as soon as the Jordan is 
passed. After the conquest is complete, except the 
solitary message of rebuke by the angel at Bochim, 
we have two whole centuries, to Gideon, in which no 
trace of a miracle is found, and only one prophetic 
message, that of Deborah to Barak. The few miracles 
that come later are of a personal kind, or messages to 
individuals, to fit them for some special work or service. 
Two public miracles occur, at intervals, in the later 
half of the period between the Conquest and Solomon, 
and each of them is connected with a main event in the 
tabernacle worship of Israel. The first was the rescue 
of the ark from the Philistines, which was never again 
restored to the tabernacle at Shiloh ; and the other was 
the pestilence, which issued in the designation of a new 
site on Mount Moriah for the temple of God. 

But as soon as the Theocracy, under the law, began 
to wane, and new revelations were to be given, per- 
manently, by prophets, to complete the old covenant, 
and link it with the Gospel that was to follow, not 
only prophetic messengers are multiplied, but public 
miracles reappear. Their place is not found amidst 
the dimness of uncertain history, or an obscure chro- 
nology, but precisely where the annals of Israel and 
Judah dovetail into each other with recurring notes of 
time, and link themselves with the records of Tyre, 
Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon. A signal prophecy, by 
Ahijah the Shilonite, and three signal miracles, in 
connection with the prophet from Judah, usher in the 
first separation of the kingdom of Israel, and are like 
an earnest of the new era that was to begin. In the 
two generations of Elijah's and Elisha's ministry, 
nearly forty miracles are recorded in Chronicles and 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 159 

Kings. A series of prophetic messages was thus 
publicly inaugurated, which reached from Jonah, the 
earliest, a contemporary of Elisha, to Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel at the time of the captivity ; when it was 
sealed once more by those two signal miracles, in which 
the faith of Daniel and his companions " stopped the 
mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire," 
during the interval between the Captivity and the 
return from Babylon. 

After this return, the Sinaitic Covenant was waxing 
old, and even the code of Old Testament prophecy 
was nearly complete. Three shorter books of pro- 
phecy sustained the faith of the remnant who had 
been restored to Judea in a time of weakness and Gen- 
tile opposition, and renewed the promise of brighter 
days at hand. But no outward miracle is found in 
these last books, of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai, 
Zechariah, and Malachi. Signs and wonders first, 
and very soon the gift of prophecy itself, are with- 
drawn, through a long space of five hundred years. 
The old dispensation, with its code of Divine messages, 
was complete ; and the fuller light of the Gospel was 
not come. 

When this time of waiting was gone by, a series of 
marvels accompanies the dawning of a new dispensa- 
tion, and ratifies the messages of the Gospel. They 
begin with the birth of our Lord, but their chief de- 
velopment attends the opening of his public ministry. 
Amidst the fullest light of classic literature, and in the 
height of the Roman dominion, when the whole civilized 
world was linked by perpetual and daily intercourse, 
we are suddenly confronted once more with " signs and 
wonders, and mighty deeds," less startling and terrible 
than those which sealed the sterner messages of the 
Law, but still more numerous and varied ; and reaching, 



160 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

like the others, through a space of forty years and up- 
ward, from our Lord's baptism to the very close of the 
Jewish polity. Their reality is attested, not only by 
the simplicity and truthfulness of the record, but by 
the admission of Celsus, Porphyry, and of the unbe- 
lieving Jews, and by their moral power in the forma- 
tion of the Christian Church, and its growth and 
spread through successive ages. They are the rock on 
which it is built so firmly, that the gates of hell have 
never prevailed for its overthrow. But when once the 
Church is founded, and the new dispensation of the 
G-ospel established throughout the breadth of the 
Roman empire, the sacred canon is brought to a close ; 
and miracles beyond that limit either suddenly cease, 
or melt away insensibly, with the removal of the first 
believers and apostolic converts, and " fade into the 
light of common day." 

The miracles of the Bible, it thus appears, are not 
scattered confusedly throughout the whole period ; as, if 
they were due only to the accidents of legend-weaving, 
we should expect them to be. They follow a manifest 
law in their distribution, no less than the planets of 
the solar system in their settled orbits. They are 
grouped mainly around two great centres, the Law of 
Moses, and the G-ospel of Christ, the two known and 
essential components in one great, progressive scheme 
of revelation. An important, but secondary series, at- 
tends and introduces the teaching of the prophets, the 
connecting link between the two dispensations. When 
we add to these a few acts of solemn judgment, the 
Flood, the Confusion of tongues, the Destruction of 
Sodom, the overthrow of the Assyrian host, and more 
private messages or visions to the three patriarchs, and 
a few judges and kings, we have nearly exhausted the 
whole range of recorded miracles. Every feature of 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 161 

their arrangement confirms the constant faith of the 
church, that they are neither the inventions of impos- 
ture, nor the dreams of wayward fancy, nor unaccount- 
able freaks of blind chance ; but credentials, appointed 
by the Only Wise God, to confirm and ratify the autho- 
rity of his own messages of holiness and grace to the 
children of men. 

TV. The last feature which marks the Bible miracles, 
and severs them widely from the idle tales of marvels, 
with which a sceptical criticism would confound them, 
is the presence, throughout, of a moral purpose. It is 
not merely true that they are shewn, by the law of 
their distribution, to be the seals and certificates of the 
messages of God. They form, themselves, one part of 
the message which they seal. 

This moral character of the miracles of the Bible has 
been often observed, and unfolded, by several writers, 
with rich and abundant evidence of its truth. It is the 
less needful, then, to dwell on it here at any length. 
The miracles of our Lord, with scarcely an exception, 
are parables also. Some deep spiritual truth shines out 
through the supernatural history. They are not, as the 
mythical theory pretends, mere ghosts or unembodied 
ideas, clothed with a shadowy veil of fiction. They 
have a body, real and true ; but it is a spiritual body, 
like that which is promised to the children of the re- 
surrection, translucent in every part with the powerful 
impress and energy of the living truth within. The 
plagues of Egypt partake of the severity and holiness 
of the legal dispensation. The works of Christ are 
gracious and gentle, though surpassingly wonderful; 
and answer well to the grace which was poured into 
his lips, and forms the essential spirit, the distinguish- 
ing glory, of the Gospel. There is a Divine harmony 
of character between the signs and wonders themselves, 

M 



162 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

the healing of the sick, the unstopping the ears of the 
deaf, and opening the eyes of the blind, the stilling of 
the storm and tempest, and the truth which all of them 
were given to confirm and ratify — " the Gospel of the 
grace of God." 

The miracles of the Bible, then, have every feature of 
agreement with their professed design, as the public 
credentials of a Divine message. They are not lavish 
and indiscriminate, but frugal and sparing in their exhi- 
bition. They are not things " done in a corner," but a ] 
public appeal to the senses and experience of large bodies 
of men. They are meted out with an exact correspond- 
ence to the times and seasons of the Divine messages, 
and are rich with moral lessons, so as to illustrate the 
messages they are designed to attest. They have no 
resemblance to the fabulous legends of heathen history, 
but are grouped by secret laws of moral harmony, in 
which the wisdom of God may be seen as clearly, by 
intelligent observers, as in the blossoming of the flowers 
of spring, the ripening of the fruits of autumn, or the 
courses of the starry heavens. 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 163 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PEOPHECIES OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

Christianity, as a public message which claims the 
faith and obedience of mankind, rests evidently on a 
double foundation, the miracles of our Lord and his 
Apostles, and the fulfilment of earlier prophecies of 
the Old Testament in the history of Christ, and the 
early progress of the Gospel. The appeal to the 
miracles is conspicuous in every part of the New 
Testament. " If I do not the works of my Father," our 
Lord said to the Jews, " believe me not. But if I do, 
though ye believe not me, believe the works." And to 
his disciples, " If I had not done among them the 
works which no other man did, they had not had sin." 
Nicodemus, even in the first twilight of his faith, had 
already learned the same lesson : " Rabbi, we know that 
thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man can do 
these miracles which thou doest, except God be with 
him." 

But the appeal to the fulfilment of prophecy is no less 
frequent, both in the lips of our Lord himself, and in the 
teaching of his Apostles. It is, equally with the mira- 
cles, made the ground of a direct and earnest claim 
that Jesus of Nazareth should be received as the true 
Messiah, and the Gospel believed to be the word and 
message of God. If this appeal be groundless and 
delusive, then Christianity, it follows by necessary con- 

m 2 



164 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

sequence, is a system of delusion. Whatever elements 
of pure morality it may seem to contain, these too must 
be deceptive ; since it would come with a lie in its 
mouth, to claim submission and reverence in the name 
of a God of truth and holiness. Whoever denies the 
reality of these predictions ceases, de facto, to be a 
Christian. For a Christian means a disciple of Christ ; 
and those cannot be disciples of our Lord, who delibe- 
rately contradict and set aside many of the clearest and 
most emphatic sayings which proceeded from his lips. 
Christianity, it is evident, as a reasonable faith, nay, as 
a scheme of high morality, and not of false pretences, 
must stand or fall with the acceptance or rejection of 
the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies, in the life, 
death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. 

Let us review first, the passages in which this claim 
is distinctly made. 

(1.) Matt. xi. 10. " For this is he of whom it is 
written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, 
who shall prepare thy way before thee." 

This prophecy of Malachi is here distinctly asserted 
by our Lord to belong to the Baptist, his own fore- 
runner. It is implied with equal clearness, that the 
following clause is a prediction of his own presence 
among the Jews, and in the Jewish temple. " And the 
Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, 
even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight 
in : behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." 

(2.) Matt. xii. 38, 40. " An evil and adulterous gene- 
ration seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be 
given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as 
Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's 
belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three 
nights in the heart of the earth." 

Here we have not only a prophecy of the resurrection 



THE PEOPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 165 

on the third day, which lodged in the memory even of 
the "unbelieving Pharisees (Matt, xxvii. 63) ; but a dis- 
tinct assertion by our Lord that the strange and unusual 
history of Jonah, which was a sign to the Ninevites, 
was a veiled prediction of his own resurrection from 
the dead. The same statement is repeated once more, 
Matt. xvi. 4. 

(3.) Matt. xxi. 42. " Jesus saith unto them, Did ye 
never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the 
builders rejected, the same is made the head of the 
corner : this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in 
our eyes ? Therefore I say unto you, The kingdom of 
God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation 
bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall 
fall on this stone shall be broken : but on whomsoever it 
shall fall, it will grind him to powder." 

Here our Lord not only affirms that the verse in 
Psalm cxviii. is a distinct prophecy of his rejection by 
the Jewish rulers, but infers from it the truth, soon 
fulfilled, of their own expulsion from the covenant of 
God, attended by heavy judgments. The apostle, who 
was present at the time, twice repeats and confirms the 
saying of his Lord, Acts iv. 11, 12 ; 1 Pet. ii. 7, 8. 

(4.) Matt. xxii. 41, 46. " If David, then, call him Lord, 
how is he his son ?" The words of Psalm ex. 1, are here 
affirmed to be a prophecy of the exaltation of Messiah, 
which was fulfilled in the twofold nature of our Lord, 
and his future exaltation to the throne of God. 

(5.) Matt. xxiv. 15, 16. " When ye see the abomina- 
tion of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, 
stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him under- 
stand), then let those which be in Judea flee into the 
mountains." Here, when the words are compared with 
St. Luke, our Lord teaches his disciples that one of 
Daniel's predictions, instead of being written after the 



166 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

event in the time of Antiochus, was a true prophecy 
of desolation to be soon inflicted on Jerusalem by the 
Roman armies. 

(6.) Matt. xxiv. 30. " And they shall see the Son of 
man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and 
great glory." These words are a plain reference to 
Daniel vii. 13, 14, and a distinct claim by our Lord to 
be the Son of man, of whom Daniel had prophesied, and 
announced his everlasting dominion and glory. 

(7.) Matt. xxvi. 23, 24. " He answered and said, 
He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same 
shall betray me. The Son of man goeth as it is written 
of him." 

We have here our Lord's declaration that his suffer- 
ings were the express subject of prophecy. But the 
connection shews that he refers immediately to Psalm 
xli. 9, and affirms its fulfilment in his betrayal by one of 
his own disciples. 

(8.) Matt. xxvi. 28. " For this is my blood of the 
new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission 
of sins." The declaration here, though indirect, is not 
the less decisive, that Jeremiah xxxi. referred to our 
Lord's sacrifice on the cross, and to the Gospel covenant 
which it sealed. 

(9.) Matt. xxvi. 31. " Then saith Jesus unto them, All 
ye shall be offended because of me this night ; for it is 
written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the 
flock shall be scattered abroad." 

No statement could be plainer than this. The pro- 
phecy in Zechariah, our Lord tells his disciples, made it 
certain that they would abandon him, in the hour when 
he was to be smitten, and lay down his life for the 
sheep. 

(10.) Matt. xxvi. 53, 54. " Thinkest thou that I can- 
not now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 167 

me more than twelve legions of angels ? But how then 
shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?" 

Here, also, nothing can be. more distinct than our 
Lord's assertion, rendered stronger by its interro- 
gatory form. The prophecies so truly foretold his suf- 
ferings as to make it essential for their truth and the 
faithfulness of God, that he should yield himself up 
without resistance into the hands of his enemies. The 
Scriptures would have failed and been falsified, unless 
he suffered. The Evangelist presently repeats and re- 
echoes the same doctrine. " But all this was done, that 
the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." 

(11.) Matt. xxvi. 64. " Hereafter ye shall see the Son 
of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming 
in the clouds of heaven." Our Lord has once before 
applied the description in Daniel to himself, in his dis- 
course to the disciples. He here repeats the same before 
the Sanhedrim. The saying, for which he was adjudged 
to be worthy of death, was simply a claim to be the 
express object of this prediction. If Daniel vii. were 
merely a pretended prophecy, or referred to some one 
else, there seems no escape from the conclusion that our 
Lord was a deceiver, and his condemnation a righteous 
sentence. 

(12.) Matt, xxvii. 46. " About the ninth hour Jesus 
cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabach- 
thani ? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me ?" 

This exclamation, if it stood alone, might be explained 
as a mere adoption of the Psalmist's words, because they 
suited his present experience of suffering. But when 
we compare them with the taunt in verse 43, which is a 
quotation from the same Psalm, and the quotation just 
before by the Evangelist in verse 35, they clearly imply 
a conscious appropriation by our Lord, on the cross, of 



168 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

the whole Psalm, as a distinct prophecy both of his 
inward experience and outward shame. 

(13.) Luke iv. 17, 21. " And he began to say unto 
them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." 
The prediction in Isaiah Ixi. 1, is here expressly re- 
ferred by our Lord to his own ministry, as its true and 
proper meaning. 

(14.) Luke xviii. 31-33. " Behold, we go up to Jeru- 
salem, and all things that are written by the prophets 
concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For 
he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be 
mocked and spitefully entreated, and spitted on, and 
they shall scourge him, and put him to death, and the 
third day he shall rise again." 

Nothing can be clearer than that the true and proper 
fulfilment of various predictions, such as Ps. xxii. 
6, 7, 15 ; Is. 1. 6, is here asserted by our Lord to centre 
in his own person, and the sufferings he was about to 
undergo. 

(15.) Luke xxii. 37. " For I say unto you, that this 
which is written must yet be accomplished in me, And 
he was reckoned among the transgressors : for even the 
things concerning me have their fulfilment." 

(16.) Luke xxiv. 25, 26. " Then he said unto them, 
fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets 
have spoken ! Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
things, and to enter into his glory ? And beginning at 
Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in 
all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." 

Luke xxiv. 44. " And he said unto them, These are 
the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet 
with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were 
written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in 
the psalms, concerning me." 

(17.) Luke xxiv. 45, 46. " Then opened he their un- 



THE PEOPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 169 

derstanding that they might understand the Scriptures, 
and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it 
behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the 
third day, and that repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name among all nations, be- 
ginning at Jerusalem." 

(18.) John v. 39. " Search the Scriptures; for in 
them ye think ye have eternal life : and they are they 
which testify of me." 

(19.) John v. 46, 47. " For had ye believed Moses, 
ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if 
ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my 
words ?" 

(20.) John xiii. 18. " I know whom I have chosen; 
but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth 
bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me." 

(21.) John xvii. 12. " And none of them is lost, but 
the son of perdition ; that the Scripture might be ful- 
filled." 

(22.) John xix. 28, 30. " After this, Jesus, knowing 
that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture 
might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. . . . When Jesus there- 
fore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished, and 
he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." 

After these plain and repeated statements of our Lord 
himself, it is needless to dwell on the many passages 
where the same doctrine is echoed by the Evangelists 
and Apostles. Twenty-five such passages, besides their 
parallels, occur in the Gospels, an equal number in the 
Book of Acts, and a still larger number in the various 
Epistles. 

The predictions, to which this appeal is publicly 
made by our Lord and his Apostles, range through the 
whole extent of the Old Testament from Genesis to 
Malachi. Besides many indirect allusions, or applica- 



170 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

tions of types in the history, they include two passages 
in Genesis, one in Exodus, two in Numbers, two in 
Deuteronomy, one in 2 Samuel, nearly twenty in the 
Psalms, more than twenty in Isaiah, two or three in 
Jeremiah, as many in Daniel, and in Hosea, one in 
Joel, two in Amos, one in Jonah, two in Micah, four 
in Zechariah, and two in Malachi. The claim is made 
throughout the whole of the New Testament, from the 
first Chapter of St. Matthew to the last of Revelation 
(Mat. i. 22, 23, Rev. xxii. 6, 9, 16). And the prophe- 
cies to which it expressly belongs range equally 
throughout the Old Testament, from the third of Genesis 
to the last chapter of Malachi. 

Of late years, however, some have ventured to re- 
nounce and contradict this uniform testimony of Christ 
himself and his Apostles, and still to retain the name 
of Christians. How those can be disciples of Christ 
who reject some of his plainest and most emphatic 
sayings, it is hard to understand. We have been 
told, for instance, that in Germany there has been 
" a pathway streaming with light, in which the value 
of the moral element in prophecy has been progres- 
sively raised, and the directly predictive, whether 
secular or Messianic, has been lowered." x It is by no 
means evident how the moral element can have been 
enhanced, by turning the prophets from inspired mes- 
sengers of God into successful practisers on the cre- 
dulity and superstition of their countrymen. But unless 
our Lord spent his time, after the resurrection, in delud- 
ing his own followers, this light is merely a relapse into 
that darkness which brought on them his severe rebuke, 
and from which they were finally set free, when " he 
opened their understanding, to understand the Scrip- 
tures." A school of negative criticism, which translates 

1 Essays and Reviews, Ess. ii. p. 67. 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 171 

Psalm xxii. 16. — " For lions have compassed me, the 
assembly of the wicked have inclosed me, as a lion my 
hands and my feet," and then makes these hands and 
feet to be those of the whole Jewish nation, is more 
akin to lunacy than to real learning. A vast induction, 
composed of such elements, may prove to be only an 
accumulation of learned folly. A pathway of pro- 
phetic interpretation, streaming with such light, merely 
illustrates the words of our Lord : "If, then, the light 
which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness !" 
Hebrew prophecy, in all its parts, was doubtless a 
witness to the kingdom of God, or to a scheme of 
moral government, exercised through successive ages 
over a sinful world. And the real question at issue is, 
whether it were a true witness to a real redemption, and 
a living Redeemer, promised from the beginning ; or a 
series of dim and imperfect guesses, by fallible men, 
as to the future results of the events which were pass- 
ing around them. In the view of Christian faith, it 
must contain, throughout, both a moral and a predic- 
tive element. It is neither bare and naked ethics, nor 
mere prediction of the future ; but a conjoint revelation 
of the will and purposes of God. If its predictions are 
mere guesses of man, with no Divine authority, then 
the message becomes a public and notorious immorality. 
It is a fraud upon the faith of men, and a blasphemy 
against the God of truth. On the other hand, merely 
to enforce duty was never the sole or chief part of 
the prophet's message. The contrast between a high 
standard and actual experience would make such a 
work, if carried on alone, a source of despondency 
and darkness. But prophecy, from first to last, is a 
message of hope. Amidst the darkness of sin and 
sorrow, it reveals the prospect of a great redemption. 
Every gleam of light, which it threw upon actual sin 



172 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and rebellion, was meant to awaken stronger desires 
for the rising of the Day spring from on high. It is a 
message from that God, who sees the end from the 
beginning, with whom a thousand years are as one day. 
While its precepts and warnings belong, of course, to 
the times when each message was given, its promises 
and encouragements are borrowed from that future, 
which lay hidden in the counsels of God, and which 
God alone could reveal. Hence its chief characteristic 
is a revelation, with increasing clearness, of " the good 
things to come." All centres in it around the person of 
the great Redeemer. The prophecies are a landscape, 
bright in every part with a light which flows from the 
still unrisen Sun of righteousness. " To him give all 
the prophets witness," and " the testimony of Jesus is 
the spirit of prophecy." 

Now every message of prophecy will receive a dif- 
ferent interpretation, as it is read with the face or the 
back turned towards this great hope of redemption, this 
sunrise in the eastern sky. One method results inevit- 
ably in the destructive criticisms of learned unbelief ; but 
the other is that instinct of faith and hope, which alone 
could profit aright by these messages, when they were 
first given, or can enable us, in the retrospect, to perceive 
their real fulness and divine beauty. They must be read, 
not as mere human guess-work by many authors widely 
remote in time, now brought together by mere acci- 
dental causes ; but as gifts from God to sinful men, per- 
vaded throughout by the unity of common purpose. 
This is essential, according to the Scriptures themselves, 
in order to attain a just view of their meaning. 
" Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is 
of self-interpretation. For prophecy came not at any 
time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 



THE PEOPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 173 

It will be enough, for our present object, to examine 
two or three main examples of that vast induction on 
the destructive side, which begins by reversing this 
first essential of true interpretation, and then glories in 
having stripped the prophecies, one by one, of their 
Messianic character ; as if it were a proud triumph of 
modern learning, to resume the exact position of the 
first disciples, when their understanding was ' still dark- 
ened, and they were pronounced, by the Truth himself, 
to be "fools, and slow of heart to believe what the 
prophets had spoken." I will select three instances 
alone, the earlier and the later prophecies of Isaiah, and 
the visions of the beloved Daniel, doubly sanctioned by 
our Lord in his own prophecy on the Mount of Olives, 
and when he witnessed his good confession before the 
Sanhedrim of the Jews. 

I. The prophecy, Isaiah vii. — ix., according to the 
constant faith of the whole church, and the express 
words of the New Testament, is a prediction of our 
Lord's supernatural birth, and announces the lasting 
continuance of his kingdom. The Negative Theology 
rejects this interpretation altogether. The phrase, 
Mighty Grod, it assures us, may only mean " strong and 
mighty one, father of an age." It " can never listen to 
any one who pretends that the maiden's child was not 
to be born in the days of Ahaz, as a sign against the 
kings of Pekah and Rezin." In other words, the prophecy 
could only be read aright with the back turned upon the 
bright future, and the hope of that Seed of the Woman, 
who had been promised from the days of Paradise. The 
Jews were to fix their thoughts entirely on their trouble 
at the moment from the confederate kings; and the 
whole drift of the Divine message was a promise that 
they would soon have access to the pasturages, from 
which they were then shut off by the siege, and would 



174 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

be able to indulge their infant children once more with 
curds and honey ! 

Now let us turn to the prophecy, and see whether 
-it lends us no key to its own real meaning. It begins 
with a startling offer, made by God himself to the 
people and their unbelieving king. " The Lord spake 
again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord 
thy God : ask it either in the depth, or in the height 
above." All nature seems here thrown open to his 
choice ; as if no token of God's power, however won- 
derful, would be withheld in this hour of temptation, if 
it were needed to confirm his faith in the Divine 
protection. But the same unbelief, which made Ahaz 
tremble before his enemies, led him to reject the 
gracious offer, with the vain excuse that it would be 
tempting God to obey his own command. The choice 
of a sign then reverts from the faithless king to the 
Lord himself, by whom the offer had been made. We 
must, therefore, expect it to be determined, not by the 
selfish fears of the wicked Ahaz, but by the grandeur 
of the Divine counsels of mercy, and in the spirit of 
that later declaration : — " As the heavens are higher 
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, 
and my thoughts than your thoughts." With Him a 
thousand years are as one day. The malice of Pekah 
and Rezin would be, in his sight, like dust in the 
balance, compared with his own thoughts of mercy to 
the chosen line of David, and through them to Israel 
and the whole race of mankind. " And he said, Hear 
ye now, house of David, is it a small thing for you 
to weary men, but will ye weary my God also ? There- 
fore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the 
virgin conceives and bears a son, and shall call his 
name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that 
he may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good." 



THE PEOPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 175 

The great object of the promised sign is clearly to 
give a full assurance of God's mercy towards the house 
of David, however great its own sin and perverseness, 
and however fierce the threats of its enemies. The 
sign, taken in its strictest meaning, fulfils this object ; 
especially since it appears from chap. ix. 6, 7, that this 
promised child was to be the heir of David's throne. 
It implies three things : a supernatural birth, answering 
to the first promise of the Seed of the Woman ; a 
superhuman character, so that in his person Grocl would 
be truly present with his people ; and freedom from 
human corruption, since, unlike all other children, Im- 
manuel would know from his first infancy to refuse the 
evil, and to choose the good. 

Such, then, is a double reason in favour of the 
Christian interpretation. It agrees with the nature of 
the offer which introduces the prophecy, and with its 
return, after its rejection by Ahaz, to him who gave it. 
It supposes the sign to have been truly what the offer 
implied, " in the depth and in the height above ;" and 
it also ascribes to the terms of the promise their strictest, 
fullest, and most expressive significance. 

Again, the whole force of the sign, on the opposite 
view, depends on the immediate birth of the child before 
Eezin and Pekah's overthrow. It would have no 
force until the actual birth, and its value would cease 
as soon as Damascus was taken by the Assyrians. It 
would be simply an ephemeral sign of a momentary 
respite, in the prospect of heavier and more lasting 
judgments. It would require such a paraphrase as this : 
" A child shall be born, in the course of nature, within a 
year, to Ahaz or Isaiah ; and before it is three or four 
years of age, it will be possible for it to be fed on curds 
and honey, because these enemies will have been over- 
thrown, and the pastures be accessible once more." 



176 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Now it is plain that, on this view, the sign really 
precedes the event as little as in the Christian inter- 
pretation, at least in its most essential feature. For the 
natural birth of a child from human parents is the most 
commonplace of events, and, standing alone, has scarcely 
any character of a sign whatever ; while the circum- 
stance marked as significant, the peculiar diet of this 
child, was not to precede, but to follow, the wished-for 
deliverance from Ephraim and Syria. 

A third reason for the same view results directly from 
the passage Isaiah vii. 1 — 4, where the birth of a child 
to the prophet himself is announced for a sign. This 
son of Isaiah, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, besides the entire 
difference of the two names prophetically given, cannot 
be the same with Immanuel for a clear and simple 
reason, that the latter is declared to be the owner of the 
land (chap. viii. 8), and the destined occupier of David's 
throne (chap. ix. 7). But the birth of the prophet's child 
evidently fulfilled every object required for the tem- 
porary purpose of being a pledge that the Syrian over- 
throw was close at hand. The birth of a second child, 
as a mere chronological sign, would have been a mere 
superfluity ; and in fact Hezekiah, the immediate heir, 
was born several years before. It results, plainly, that 
the promise of Immanuel had a different object ; and 
did not refer to that one moment of time, but to the 
whole series of troubles which were coming on the 
house of David, from mightier foes than either Rezin 
or Eemahah's son. 

Again, on the naturalist view, the birth of Immanuel 
is simply a pledge of Rezin's speedy overthrow ; and is 
subordinate in its importance to that deliverance of 
Judah and of king Ahaz, which must constitute the ; 
main scope of the prophecy. But the whole passage 
when compared together, points to an exactly opposite 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 177 

conclusion. This overthrow of Rezin is there made 
singly the preface to a long series of heavier troubles 
from the kings of Assyria, by which Israel and 
Judah alike would be brought to comparative deso- 
lation. But the promise of the child Immanuel takes 
the lead of the whole prophecy. It appears in the 
middle of it, as the stay in the height of the Assyrian 
conquests of desolations, and breaks out once more at 
the close, as a full message of everlasting consolation. 
: ' He shall pass through Judah, he shall overflow and 
pass over, he shall reach even to the neck ; and the 
stretching forth of Ins wings shall fill the breadth of 
thy land, Immanuel. Take counsel together, and it 
shall come to nought, speak the word, and it shall not 
stand, for Immanuel. . . . For unto us a child is born, 
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be 
upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting- 
Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his 
government and peace there shall be no end, upon the 
throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, 
and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from 
henceforth, even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of 
hosts will perform this." 

' Even those words of chap. vii. 16, which form the 
stronghold of the naturalist interpretation, and which 
have led many Christian writers to admit a double ful- 
filment in a child of Isaiah or Ahaz, as well as in 
Messiah, will be found, I believe, on closer examination 
to lend no real support to this view. The mention of 
" butter (or curds) and honey " as the food of the infant 
Immanuel, is the link by which alone his birth is here 
connected, in time, with the overthrow of Eezin. 
" For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and 
choose the good, the land thou abhorrest shall be for- 

N 



178 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

saken of both her kings." But the passage does not 
terminate here ; nor would the connection be at all 
clear, unless we read the verses that follow. Now 
these predict, along with, and after, the overthrow of 
Kezin, an Assyrian and Egyptian invasion, extending 
to Judah as well as Samaria. One result of these 
would be the general use of a diet of " butter and 
honey" from the desolation of the country. " In that 
day a man shall nourish a cow and two young sheep ; 
and for the abundance of milk that they shall give he 
shall eat butter (or curds) ; for butter and honey shall 
every one eat that is left in the land." These deso- 
lations were to extend to Ahaz himself, his people, and 
his father's house, (verse 17.) And thus the real drift 
of the prediction must be, that before the promised 
Immanuel was of age to refuse the evil and to choose 
the good, not only would Rezin have been overthrown, 
but the land of Judah itself have been desolated by the 
Assyrian armies. Thus the sole argument in favour 
of the lower and temporary view of the prediction, 
when closely examined, disappears ; and lends a further 
presumption to the nobler application to our Lord 
himself, the Son of the Yirgin, the true Messiah, and 
the long-promised heir of David's throne. 

II. The later prophecies of Isaiah (ch. xl. — lxvi.) 
are another main object of assault to those modern 
critics, who labour to dispense with all supernatural 
prediction. It is asserted boldly that they were not 
written by Isaiah himself, but nearly two centuries 
later, in the time of Zerubbabel, and are much rather a 
history of the present than proj)hecies of a distant 
future. The treatment of them in this sj)irit, so as to 
establish these conclusions, has been called the most 
brilliant portion- of Baron Bunseii's prophetical essays. 
In this he only succeeds, it is said* to an inheritance of 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. . 179 

opinion, derived from Gesenius, Ewald, Maurer, and 
earlier and later authorities in Hebrew criticism, to 
dispute whose decisions would be reckoned, in Germany, 
a suicidal and ridiculous folly. 

In Germany itself, however, these views have by 
no means met with such a blind submission. On the 
contrary, there are critics of no inferior ability, who 
have seen and proclaimed the hollow nature of the 
unbelieving assumption on which they rest. Thus 
Keil remarks upon Ewald's treatment of Joshua, and 
the words apply equally to this portion of Isaiah, 
" In this dissection the only principle which guides him 
is the old rationalistic doctrine, that a supernatural 
revelation, accompanied by miracles and prophecies, 
is neither a fact nor a possibility, and that the theocratic 
view of Israelitish history is altogether a creation of 
poetic myths. . . . Tins foregone conclusion of common 
rationalism is both the chief assumption, and the de- 
cisive rule, in the determination of the original sources. 
The different passages are said to date from the periods 
to which, in his opinion, the predictions contained in 
them refer; since the prophecies are nothing but the 
veiled poetic method of picturing present events, or, at 
most, forebodings of future occurrences already involved 
in the present. Actual predictions do not exist. The 
entire theory is, therefore, built upon the sand. It has 
not the slightest objective truth in it, and does not 
| admit of examination in detail, as it is not founded on 
any scientific principle." 

Let us now examine the direct proofs of authenticity 
in these later chapters of Isaiah, and the nature of those 
critical objections which have been urged to set it 
aside. 

(1.) First, the whole book has been received by the' 
Jews, so far as evidence remains, from the very date of 

n 2 



180 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

its publication, as the genuine work of Isaiah. The 
inscription alone is a public testimony to the fact, and 
no trace of a contrary opinion can be found among 
them. The writer of Ecclesiasticus, also, in the second 
century before Christ, alludes distinctly to these later 
prophecies, and refers them without hesitation to Isaiah 
as their author. 

(2.) The Book of Ezra supplies a still stronger proof. 
It begins with a decree of Cyrus : " He made proclama- 
tion through all his kingdom, and put it in writing. 
Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God of 
heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and 
he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, 
which is in Juclah." There is here a distinct reference 
to Isa. xliv. 28 : " That saith of Cyrus, He is my shep- 
herd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying 
to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple, 
Thy foundation shall be laid." 

This explanation of the decree is not only plain in 
itself, but confirmed by the statement of Josephus, 
which proves that it was the current tradition of the 
Jews in the first century. " These things," he observes, 
" Cyrus knew through reading the book which Isaiah 
left of his own prophecies, two hundred and ten years 
before. For he reported the message of Grod : ' I have 
chosen Cyrus, whom I have made king of many and 
great nations, to send my people into their own land, 
and to build my temple.' These things Isaiah predicted 
a hundred and forty years before the temple was de- 
stroyed. When Cyrus had read these words, he won- 
dered at the Divine message, and a certain impulse and 
ambition seized him to do what was written." 

(3.) Our Lord and his Apostles bear witness to the 
same truth. There are about fifty-four quotations from 
Isaiah in the New Testament, and nineteen in which 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 181 

he is mentioned by name. Thirty-three of them are 
from these later chapters, of which the authenticity has 
been denied, and they are referred eleven times to 
Isaiah by name. Thus Isa. xl. 3 is ascribed to him by 
John the Baptist and all the four evangelists. When 
our Lord opened his ministry at Nazareth, " there was 
given to him the Book of Esaias the prophet." He 
turned to the sixty-first chapter, read its opening 
verses, closed the book and sat down, and then said, 
" This clay is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." This 
indirect testimony to the passage, as truly part of 
Isaiah's writings, and the direct acknowledgment of 
it as genuine prophecy, formed the starting-point of 
our Lord's Galilean ministry. Again, St. John accounts 
for the unbelief of the Jews in our Lord's miracles, by 
referring to another of these predictions. " That the 
saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which 
he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report?" 
" Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias 
said again," etc. The two quotations — one from the 
earlier and one from the later chapters — are followed by 
the common statement, " These things said Esaias, when 
he saw his glory, and spake ojf him." The theory, 
then, which assigns these chapters to some later writer 
during the exile, is in flagrant contradiction to the 
teaching of our Lord and his Apostles. 

(4.) The structure of the work yields decisive inter- 
nal evidence of its unity. Four chapters of simple 
narrative separate its two main portions. The Book of 
Isaiali's prophecies cannot be supposed to end with the 
first of these, or chap. xxxv. ; for then it would entirely 
omit the most impressive part of his personal history 
and message at the time of Hezekiah's sickness, and of 
the Assyrian invasion. A final close at chap, xxxix. 
would be still more unnatural. How lame and impotent 



X82 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

a termination would it be to all the warnings and pro- 
mises even of the earlier portion alone — " Then said 
Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which 
thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall 
be peace and truth in my days." 

The book, on the contrary, as it now stands, has an 
almost dramatic unity. The earlier portion is grouped, 
in all its warnings and promises, around the great fact 
of the progressive desolations wrought in Palestine and 
the border countries by the kings of Assyria. The later 
portion has its basis and prophetical departure in the 
exile at Babylon, and the deliverance under Cyrus. 
The ten tribes were to be utterly desolated by the 
Assyrian ; but though the waters of the river, strong 
and many, would reach in Judah even to the neck, 
the adversaries were not to prevail, but to meet, on the 
contrary, a decisive overthrow. Under Babylon, the 
two tribes also would be overthrown, and led away into 
a long captivity ; but when the judgment had thus 
reached its height, the mercies of the Lord would begin 
to return to the chosen people. 

Now the four chapters xxxvi. — xxxix. exactly fulfil 
the purpose of effecting the transition from one of this 
double series of prophecies to the other. They begin 
with the invasion of Sennacherib, and describe the weak- 
ness of Judah, the alarm of the people, the insulting 
boldness of the Assyrian invader, and the faith of the 
pious king. The message of Isaiah follows, which forms 
the climax and culminating point of his personal ministry. 
Then follows the brief account of the sudden destruction 
of the Assyrian army, and the death of the proud king 
by parricide, after his return to Nineveh. The first woe 
from Assyria has now passed away, but another begins 
to dawn in the far horizon. Merodach-baladan, the 
king of Babylon, sends messengers and a present to 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 183 

Hezekiah, to congratulate him on his recovery. Under 
an impulse of vanity he shews them all his choicest 
treasures ; and the prophet is sent to him at once with 
the humbling message, that all these treasures, and his 
own sons and successors on the throne, shall be carried 
away in captivity to Babylon. This new danger, pro- 
phetically announced, now becomes the starting-point 
of a new and still more glorious series of predictions. 
The former were marked by a tone of warning and 
judgment ; but these are rich, from first to last, with 
promises of deliverance and blessing. The intermediate 
time of growing trial and distress, the more humbling 
details of the captivity, and of the return itself, are all 
passed over in silence. Two themes of hoj)e and joy 
characterize the whole ; the deliverance under Cyrus 
in the nearer distance, or prophetic foreground ; and 
beyond it, the work, the sufferings, and the glory of the 
promised Immanuel, the true Israel, the Man of sorrows, 
the Anointed Prophet and Intercessor, the lasting 
inheritor of David's throne. 

The Book of Isaiah, then, in its actual form, has a 
symmetry of structure which the sceptical hypothesis 
completely destroys. The four historical chapters, by 
the nature of their contents, fulfil the purpose of linking 
together two contrasted series of prophecies. All the 
earlier ones converge towards the event narrated, chap. 
xxxvi. — xxxviii., the grand catastrophe of the Assyrian 
overthrow. All the later ones radiate from the warning 
to Hezekiah, chap, xxxix., and compose a treasury of 
hopes by which the faithful were to be sustained, 
through two centuries of sorrow and fear, until the 
return, and through five centuries more of conflict and 
delay, until the coming of the promised Immanuel. If 
we tear away this later portion from the rest of the 
book, instead of one consistent whole we have two 



184 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

broken fragments, equally unnatural and incomplete in 
their separate structure. : 

(5.) A comparison with the real prophecies of the 
exile will yield a further proof of the baseless nature of 
the novel theory. Only five or six chapters of the 
Book of Jeremiah are simply prophetic, and all the rest 
are either pure history, or abound with historical 
details. The last sixteen chapters of Ezekiel are simple 
prophecy, but the others, being two-thirds of the whole, 
have historical dates, or various particulars of actual 
history. The same is true of the Books of Daniel and 
Zechariah. We have no single instance of a complete 
prophecy, without mention of the name of its author, 
or some statement of the time when he wrote, or some 
definite allusions to the actual events of the times. 
But these chapters, if not a part of Isaiah, would be 
a solitary contrast to this universal law of prophetic 
revelation. No name of a writer would be prefixed, no 
mention of the place where, or the time when he wrote. 
No single detail occurs in them with regard to a single 
person among the Jewish exiles, no name of one king 
or noble of Babylon, or anything which has the air of 
historical narration. The passages which approach the 
nearest to this character, are not only prophetical in 
tone and style, with a constant use or intermixture of 
the future tense ; but are joined with distinct assertions 
that they are the words of that Grod who " declareth 
the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the 
things that are not yet done." With such a concurrence 
of external and internal evidence for their authenticity, 
as the best and noblest portion of Isaiah's prophecies, 
it seems impossible to account for the acceptance of an 
opposite view, but from a spirit of settled unbelief in the 
possibility of supernatural revelation. 

(6.) The special reasons alleged for this view are 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 185 

either of no force, or else prove exactly the reverse. 
First, in chap. xlvi. 1 — " Bel boweth down, Nebo 
stoopeth ;" the present tense is used, as it is very fre- 
quently in most prophecies. But tne inference that 
the events were passing at the time is both inconsistent 
with the supposed date, before the close of the exile, 
and with the words which immediately follow, verse 
10, 11, which teach us to read in this prediction 
a clear proof of the Divine foreknowledge. Again, in 
chap, xlviii. 20 — " Go ye forth from Babylon," the 
appeal is no less unfortunate. For the same chapter 
supplies this distinct explanation : " Because I knew 
that thou art obstinate, and thy neck an iron sinew, 
and thy brow brass ; I have even from the beginning 
declared it unto thee, before it came to pass I shewed 
it thee." The argument from the presence of a few 
Chaldee forms or phrases is only a curious illustration 
of the perversity of these sceptical criticisms. For the 
Book of Daniel, when viewed as genuine, was written 
by Daniel, a Jewish exile, dwelling in Chaldea ; and 
accordingly one-half of the book is Chaldee, and the 
rest is Hebrew. The negative critics, however, stoutly 
deny its authenticity, and ascribe it to some Jew of 
Palestine, in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, when 
neither Chaldee nor Hebrew, but a Syriac, distinct 
from both, was the usual language. On the other 
hand, these chapters of Isaiah, which are Hebrew 
throughout, and where not a single verse is Chaldee, 
as in Jeremiah, are referred to some Jew towards the 
close of the time of the exile, when the displacement of 
Hebrew by Chaldee would probably have reached its 
height. One of the very few words on which the 
argument is based, also, is sagan for prince in the verse, 
" I have raised one from the north, and he shall come ; 
from the rising of the sun he shall call upon my name, 



186 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, as the 
potter treadeth clay." Now, certainly, the sixty years 
which had passed from the first Assyrian invasions to 
the fifteenth of Hezekiah, (since the Chaldeans were 
included among the dependencies of Nineveh,) were an 
interval quite long enough for the prophet and the 
Israelites to have learnt the Chaldean names for their 
princes ; and it would be only natural and significant 
to make use of it in a prediction of their overthrow by 
the Persian conqueror. Hezekiah, besides, had re- 
ceived an honourable embassy from the king of Babylon, 
and it is most probable that one or more sagans might 
have been the messengers; so that nothing can well 
be more ridiculous than to found an argument on this 
solitary word, for lowering the time of the prophecy 
two hundred years. 

(7.) It is needless to dwell, in detail, on the violent 
and even monstrous glosses which have accompanied 
this hypothesis ; and which are necessary (even when 
its date has been lowered to the time of Zerubbabel, in 
defiance of all testimony and all internal evidence), to 
purify it completely from the character of a Divine and 
supernatural prophecy. Such is that brilliant discovery 
that Isaiah liii. is no prophecy, but a historical sketch 
of the life of the prophet Jeremiah. After nine distinct 
and explicit applications of clauses of this prophecy to 
Christ in the New Testament, including the discourse 
of Philip to the eunuch under the express teaching of 
the Spirit, when he " began at the same Scripture, and 
preached to him Jesus," and the words, still more 
weighty, if possible, of our Lord himself: " I say unto 
you, that this which is written must yet be accom- 
plished in me : And he was numbered with the trans- 
gressors, for even the things that concern me must be 
fulfilled " — the acceptance of such a view, by any one 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 187 

who calls himself a Christian, can hardly be explained 
unless by another joassage of the same prophet : " Stay 
yourselves and wonder : they are drunken, but not 
with wine ; they stagger, but not with strong drink ; 
for the Lord hath poured out upon them the spirit 
of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes ; the pro- 
phets and rulers, the seers hath he covered, and the 
vision of all is become as the words of a book 
that is sealed." Truths, which are plain as daylight 
to simple and honest hearts, become wrapped in mist 
and darkness, when the. pride of fancied learning 
usurps the place of lowly reverence for the oracles of 
the living God. 

III. The prophecies of Daniel are another object of 
determined hostility to the negative critics of modern 
times. In fact, a belief in their genuineness is fatal 
at once to the whole theory. The unusual fulness 
and clearness of the predictions in chap. viii. and ix. 
forces us to accept the alternative, that they are either 
due to the Divine foreknowledge, or else forged pro- 
phecies, written after the events which they pretend to 
foretell. Accordingly, the latter view is adopted by 
Celsus and Porphyry, the open adversaries of the 
Gospel in early times, and by all those critics in our 
own days, who strive to reconcile the name of Christian 
with a rejection of all the most essential features of the 
Christian revelation. 

Now here it is well to remember, at the outset, the 
real nature of the question at issue between unbelieving 
criticism and Christian faith, which it has been sought 
to disguise by smooth and nattering words, where real 
compromise is impossible. We have been told, for 
example, that although the writer lived after the 
events, and only borrowed the name of the true Daniel, 
he was a " patriot bard," who used it with no deceptive 



188 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

intention, as a dramatic form, to encourage his coun- 
trymen in their struggle against Antiochus. But this 
hypothesis, on the face of it, is incredible and absurd. 
If ever there were a history which, clearly and un- 
deniably, was meant to be received as real, it is these 
chapters of Daniel. If ever there were prophecies 
which, if not real prophecies, are a series of blasphe- 
mous profanations of the name of God, it is these visions. 
The real meaning, then, of the hypothesis is this, and 
can be nothing else — that the Book of Daniel consists 
of false and fraudulent history, invented by an un- 
principled and profane Jewish forger, to be the vehicle 
of pretended prophecies, written after the events they 
seemed to predict ; and where the name of the Grod of 
truth and holiness is profaned in every chapter, 
and almost in every verse, in ^'order to give wider 
currency to an infamous lie. It means also that the 
unknown writer, though our Lord himself has called 
him " Daniel the prophet," was really one of the 
foremost in the class the apostle describes, who say, 
" Let us do evil, that good may come ; whose damna- 
tion is just." Once accept the premises of these critics, 
and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that a 
book more immoral, more recklessly profane than this 
Book of Daniel, has scarcely been written since the 
beginning of the world. The evidence must indeed 
be strong, which would persuade any pious mind to 
acquiesce for a moment in so hateful and hideous a 
conclusion. 

Let us now examine the direct evidence for the 
authenticity of these prophecies, and the nature of the 
objections which have been alleged to prove them 
spurious. 

(1.) First, the book has been received without oppo- 
sition by the Jewish Church and j)eople, from the time 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 189 

when the canon was finished, as the genuine work of 
Daniel himself. It rests, therefore, on the same internal 
evidence on which the Christian Church, from the 
beginning, has received every other book of the Old 
Testament, the constant and uniform tradition of the 
Jewish people, whose jealous care of their Scriptures 
has been confirmed by tests of peculiar severity, both 
before and after the time of the Gospel. 

It has been urged, as some abatement of this testi- 
mony, that Daniel is placed among the Hagiographa, 
between Esther and Ezra, and is not numbered with 
the other prophets. But it seems a simple explanation, 
that the book was not only composed out of Palestine, 
and partly in a Gentile dialect, but that a considerable 
part is pure history, and forms an historical link be- 
tween the Books of Kings and those of Esther, Ezra, 
and Nehemiah. It is quite easy, then, to understand 
that its place might be fixed with reference rather to 
its histories than its prophecies ; especially since two of 
the last are expressly sealed, and, when the canon was 
formed, their meaning would be still an unopened 
mystery. As a history, the book forms the natural 
transition from the close of Kings or Chronicles to the 
books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther ; and its asso- 
ciation with these in the canon is therefore very 
simply explained, without the least impeachment of its 
authority. 

(2.) Next, we have a distinct testimony of Josephus 
that the book was extant in the time of Alexander, 
that one part of it was read to him when he visited 
Jerusalem, and that it was the occasion of public and 
especial favours being granted to the Jews. " And 
when the Book of Daniel the prophet was shewn to 
him, in which he revealed that some one of the Greeks 
would destroy the Persian dominion, judging that he 



190 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

himself was pointed out, he was rejoiced, and dismissed 
the multitude ; and summoning them the next day, 
bade them ask for what gifts they chose. And when 
the high priest requested that they might use their 
national laws, and be free from tribute every seventh 
year, he granted the whole. And when they further 
besought that he would allow the Jews in Babylonia 
and Media to use their own laws, he readily promised 
to do what they desired." The appeal is here made to 
facts which must have been notorious, of privileges 
given by Alexander to the Jews. There could be no 
stronger testimony to the full and undoubting convic- 
tion of Josephus and the Jews of his days, that the pro- 
phecy of Daniel was in the hands of Jaddua in the 
time of Alexander, or nearly two hundred years before 
Antiochus. 

(3.) A testimony still more decisive by far, in the 
eyes of every Christian, is that of our Lord himself, as 
recorded in the first two Gospels. " But when ye see 
the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the 
prophet, standing in the holy place (or, where it ought 
not) (let him that readeth understand) then let them, 
which be in Judea flee into the mountains." Soon 
after there follow these impressive words : " Heaven 
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass 
away." 

One of the words of Christ, then$ attested by this 
solemn sanction from the lips of him who is the Truths 
is the statement that the prophecy in the hands of the 
disciples, which they were charged to read with in- 
telligence, and where the abomination of desolation is 
repeatedly named, is truly that of " Daniel the prophet." 
The theory, then, broached by those modern critics 
who would make it a forgery in the days of Antiochus^ 
gives the lie direct to the Lord of Grlory, in one of his 



THE PEOPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 191 

clearest averments, which is followed by a most explicit 
and solemn attestation. It is hard to understand how 
those who embrace it can still dare to call themselves 
disciples of Christ. 

(4.) The testimony of the apostle, in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, is more indirect, but hardly less powerful 
and complete. In his list of the victories of faith in 
the worthies of the Old Testament, we find the two 
particulars, that they " stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire." The allusion is plainly 
to the two histories, Dan. iii. and vi. These are placed 
in the same rank of historical certainty with all the 
other facts in the brief summary, and the conclusion is 
drawn : — " These all, having obtained a good report 
through faith, received not the promise, God having 
provided some better thing for us, that they without us 
should not be made perfect. Wherefore seeing we are 
compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let 
us run with patience the race that is set before us." 
But if some of these witnesses, and the asserted 
triumphs of their faith, are mere inventions of an un- 
scrupulous forger, the earnest appeal that follows is 
robbed entirely of its moral power, and becomes ridicu- 
lous and absurd. The truth of the facts is the basis of 
all the force and strength in this glowing exhortation 
to diligence, fidelity, and patience. 

(5.) The internal evidence, from the historical facts 
alone, is strong and clear. The chronology falls in 
with the statement of the other Scriptures, and also with 
the canon of Ptolemy. The name of Belshazzar, after 
being looked for in vain in heathen writers, has now of 
late been detected in the decyphered remains of Baby- 
lonia, as a joint ruler with his own father at the time 
of Babylon's fall. This accounts, also, as remarked 
already, for the minute contrast, that while Joseph was 



192 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

made second ruler in Egypt, Daniel was only promised 
by Belshazzar, in the hour of his terror, to be the third 
ruler in his kingdom. The madness of Nebuchadnezzar 
towards the close of his reign is attested by a fragment 
of Megasthenes. The supplication of Daniel, in the 
first year of Darius the Mede, corresponds punctually 
with the near approach of the expiration of the seventy 
years from Jehoiachin's captivity ; and the earnestness 
of liis later prayer, with fasting, in the third of Cyrus, 
equally corresponds to the crisis in the Book of Ezra, 
when adverse counsels first interrupted the progress of 
the work at Jerusalem, and brought the Jews into dis- 
favour once more at the court of Persia. An un- 
principled inventor of fables in the days of Antiochus 
was little likely to form by accident, or to produce by 
artifice, such undesigned coincidences as these. The 
mention that Darius was sixty-two years old when he 
took the kingdom, while it agrees with all probability, if 
he were the uncle of Cyrus, is one of the clearest signs 
of a contemporary and well-informed writer. No other 
explanation is possible, except we impute to him a de- 
liberate fraud, in order to produce a false impression, 
and clothe mere fiction with a mask of historical reality. 
(6.) The language of the book, and the mutual rela- 
tion of its histories and its visions, are another proof of 
its genuineness. The character of the whole, in these 
respects, is peculiar and complicated. The first six 
chapters are historical ; the other six are a series of 
prophetic visions. The first chapter, three verses of 
the second, and the last five are in Hebrew, but 
the rest, from ii. 4 to vii. 28, is in Chaldee. Again, 
the third person is used in the six historical chapters, 
and the first person in all the rest. Nothing could 
shew more clearly the unity of the whole, and the claim, 
throughout, to be the writing of Daniel himself. If the 



THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 193 

separation of the languages had coincided with that of 
history and prophecy, there might be some excuse for 
an hypothesis which would ascribe the two parts to dif- 
ferent authors. Their interlacing together, where one 
chapter of history alone is in Hebrew and one of the 
four successive visions alone in Chaldee, proves that the 
whole forms one connected work, the jDarts of which 
cannot be severed. But it discovers also a secret rela- 
tion between the actual contents and the languages 
employed, which marks the wisdom of an inspired 
prophet, and not the capricious narration of an un- 
principled forger. The history begins in Hebrew, so as 
•to link itself both in form and substance with the 
canonical history at the close of Kings. It changes to 
Chaldee as soon as the Chaldeans are introduced in the 
dialogue, and continues in Chaldee throughout the time 
of the seventy years' captivity to its close. The first 
vision, also, is in Chaldee ; since it does not refer specific- 
ally to Jewish history, but to the series of Gentile mo- 
narchies, and is an enlargement of the vision, already 
recorded in Chaldee, which was given to the king Ne- 
buchadnezzar. But the other prophecies, since they all 
refer to the later history of the Jews, and the times of 
their restoration, are in Hebrew only. In all these de- 
licate and complex relations we have a distinct harmony 
with the character and position of the true Daniel, a 
Hebrew of the royal stock, but an exile from his child- 
hood, who remained in Babylon through the whole 
course of the seventy years. Instead of these secret 
harmonies of Divine wisdom, the sceptical theory offers 
us the blind chance-medley of a Jewish forger, who 
chose, in the time of Antiochus, to indite his own in- 
ventions in the shape of history, and then to garble real 
history by turning it into pretended prophecy ; who 
adopted a false name in two different ways, and con- 



194 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

structed his forgery in two different languages, both 
of them distinct from the vernacular of his own days, 
and one of them without precedent in a canonical book 
of prophecy. 

(7.) The objection from the alleged presence of Greek 
words, or late forms of expression, has been abundantly 
refuted in Germany itself by scholars of accuracy and 
learning. In fact, our own earlier writers against the 
deists of last century, Samuel and Bishop Chandler, 
has already done it with substantial force of reasoning. 
Hengstenberg and Havernick, and others, have treated 
it more fully. It is enough to observe here that of the 
two Macedonian words, symphonia &n& psanterion, referred 
to (Essays, p. 76) as decisive proofs of a late composi- 
tion, the second is neither a Macedonian word nor 
occurs in the Book of Daniel, while the other occurs in 
two forms, sumponya and syponya, neither of which cor- 
responds exactly with the Greek word ; that only one 
known instance occurs, in Polybius, where this Greek 
word is used for a musical instrument ; and that in the case 
of a third musical instrument, the sambuca, equally relied 
on by earlier opponents of the authenticity, both Strabo 
and AtheiiEeus expressly refer the instrument itself and 
its name to an eastern source. Besides, it is highly 
probable that some intercourse of Greece with upper 
Asia dates from the time even of Sennacherib, as we 
may infer from Polyhistor and Abydenus. The whole 
objection, once held to be so formidable, after reducing 
itself to three names of musical instruments alone, has 
at length been abandoned by some of the latest oppo- 
nents, in Germany, as untenable and worthless. On the 
other hand, the broad fact, already noticed, of the two- 
fold language in which the book is written, agrees 
perfectly with the supposition that it is the genuine 
work of the prophet Daniel, and with no other view. 



THE PEOPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 195 

(8.) It has been urged, as a further objection, that 
the prophecies are clear and full to the time of An- 
tiochus Epiphanes, about B.C. 169, and then suddenly 
cease, or become vague and ambiguous. No assertion, 
however, could be more grossly untrue. There is no 
pretence whatever for making three out of the five pro- 
phecies close with Antiochus ; and a comparison with 
the New Testament will prove that we can only accept 
that view, in a fourth prediction, by directly con- 
tradicting and rejecting the authority of an inspired 
apostle. The reference of the fourth part of the image, 
and of the fourth beast (chap, vii.), to the Roman empire, 
is confirmed by an immense preponderance of external 
authority and internal evidence ; and the contrary 
hypotheses of the negative critics are not only mutually 
destructive, but each of them is loaded with some pal- 
pable absurdity. Such is the view which makes the 
Medes and Persians to be two of the four empires, in 
direct opposition to the book itself (chap, viii.), where 
they form conjointly the Ram, or one empire only ; and 
that which makes Alexander and his successors two 
distinct empires, in equal contradiction to common sense 
and the language of the prophecy. But the prophecy 
of the seventy weeks offers a shorter and more distinct 
proof of the entire falsehood of this confident assertion. 
It is quite impossible, without a critical torture like that 
of the Inquisition, to make it agree in any way with the 
asserted date under Antiochus. For, not to insist on the 
total period, sixty-two weeks of years are four hundred 
and thirty-four years. The earliest decree to rebuild 
Jerusalem was that of Cyrus, B.C. 536. Hence this 
shortened and imperfect period, applied to the earliest 
possible date, would bring the close to B.C. 102, or nearly 
seventy years after the Dedication under the Maccabees, 
when the persecution of Epiphanes reached its close. 

o 2 



196 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

On the other hand, the Christian application of the 
prophecy, in its main outlines, is simple, easy, and con- 
sistent. The seventy weeks are broken into three com- 
ponents, of seven, sixty-two, and one single week, or 
forty-nine, four hundred and thirty-four, and seven 
years. The close of the first is not distinctly defined, 
but it seems implied that the street and the wall were to 
be rebuilded during its progress. In B.C. 458 was the 
decree of Artaxerxes, which formally reconstructed or 
rebuilt Jerusalem as a civic corporation, or a provincial 
metropolis under the Persian empire. Within forty- 
nine years, or before B.C. 409, the Book of Nehemiah 
was complete, the street and the wall were rebuilt, and 
the canon of Scripture apparently closed. Sixty-two 
weeks from this limit, or four hundred and thirty-four 
years, four hundred and eighty-three from the first 
decree, bring us to a.d. 26-27, the exact year and date, 
it is almost certain, of the Baptist's ministry, and of 
those words of our Lord which allude probably to this 
very passage, " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom 
of heaven is at hand : repent and believe the gospel." 
Then follow three and a half years of the Baptist's 
and our Lord's ministry till His crucifixion, when 
Messiah was cut off, and none were on His side ; the 
confirmation of the new covenant with many disciples ; 
and lastly, the prediction repeated and applied by our 
Lord himself, when Jerusalem was compassed with 
armies, and the desolating abomination stood on holy 
ground, and the city and the sanctuary were both de- 
stroyed. To those sceptical critics, who resist so plain 
and consistent an application, and strive to wrest the 
prediction to the times of Antiochus, the words of 
another prophet may well be applied, " We grope for 
the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no 
eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night." The 



TEE PEOPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 197 

folly of this fancied learning, which sets itself boldly 
against the clearest authority of Christ and his Apostles, 
and achieves after all such lame and impotent results, 
can only deserve profound commiseration. 

The books of the Old Testament, then, from first to 
last, contain multiplied and various prophecies, which 
have been fulfilled in the person and work of the Lord 
Jesus, and in the later spread of his gospel. The Seed 
of the woman has been miraculously born, and has 
begun to bruise the head of the Serpent, by casting- 
down heathen idolatry in the chief nations of the world, 
and planting the standard of the cross victorious upon 
its ruins. The race of Japhet have been enlarged, and 
dwell now in the tents of Shem, by the recejotion of the 
nations of the west into the visible church of the God of 
Israel. The seed of Abraham has been born, and has 
begun to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. 
The true Shiloh has appeared, before the sceptre had 
departed from Judah ; and his later sentence by a Roman 
governor proved that it had then departed, or was just 
passing away. A Prophet like Moses has appeared, 
rescued in his infancy from the malice of murderous 
enemies, and rejected, when he first came to them, by 
the very people whom he sought to deliver. The 
Virgin has conceived and borne a Son, and he is 
called Immanuel, by the consenting worship of one 
fourth of the world's population. His name is called 
by these countless millions, in every Christinas celebra- 
tion, — " Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the 
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." He has come 
in the character ascribed to him by the same prophet, 
" a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." The 
Jews, his own people, " hid their faces from him ; he was 
despised and they esteemed him not." That which was 
written was strictly accomplished in him : "He was 



198 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

numbered with the transgressors," for even the suffer- 
ings of the Son of Grod, being predicted in Holy Scrip- 
ture, must be fulfilled. Less than seventy weeks of 
years elapsed after Artaxerxes' decree of restoration to 
Jerusalem, when " Messiah the Prince appeared." He 
was cut off, none were on his side, but even his disciples 
forsook him and fled ; and the people of the Roman 
prince, within forty years, destroyed the city and the 
sanctuary, and their desolation has continued even to 
the present day. But the unbelief of the Jews has only 
confirmed the prophecies, and ensured the fulfilment of 
a further promise made to Messiah in the prospect of 
their rebellion. " It is a light thing that thou shouldest 
be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to 
restore the preserved of Israel ; I will also give thee for 
a light to the Gentiles ; that thou mayest be my sal- 
vation to the ends of the earth." He who can compare 
the history in the Gospel, and the later progress of 
Christianity, with the series of Old Testament pre- 
dictions, and still continue blind to their correspondence, 
and the proof it supplies of the Christian revelation, falls 
under the stern rebuke of that sentence of our Lord 
himself: " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, 
neither will they be persuaded though one rose from 
the dead." 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 199 



CHAPTER IX. 

CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 

Christian faith consists in an acknowledgment of the 
Divine mission of our Lord and his Apostles, and an 
acceptance of their testimony to the person and work of 
Christ, as the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world. 
The natural means in our days for attaining this faith, 
is an acceptance of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, as 
credible and truthful records of the first rise of the 
Christian religion. But a reception of the whole Bible, 
as inspired and authoritative, is a corollary of Christian 
faith. It holds the first place among the subsidiary 
doctrines of the Gospel. It does not enter distinctly 
into the creeds of the early Church ; but still it pene- 
trates the whole range of Christian literature, and is 
the chief security for a steady and firm progress in the 
knowledge of Divine truth. In the minds of common 
Christians it is now so closely united, both by habitual 
association and spiritual instmct, with their faith in the 
gospel itself, that they find it hard to view the two 
truths as separable. It is chiefly when we have to deal 
with unbelievers, or perplexed and doubting inquirers, 
that it is needful to distinguish clearly two succes- 
sive stages in the growth of a reasonable faith ; which 
must rest, first of all, on the person of our Lord, and 
his supernatural mission and Divine authority; and 
will afterwards embrace the inspiration of the written 



200 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

word and the Divine authority of all the Scriptures, 
both of the Old and the New Testament. 

The previous chapters refer to the evidence of Chris- 
tianity itself, in contrast to that more open infidelity 
which rejects the Divine authority of the Lord Jesus. 
Those which follow relate to the further truth, assailed 
by a lax and semi-infidel school of professed Chris- 
tianity, that the Old and New Testaments are, through- 
out their whole extent, the words of the Holy Ghost, 
and authoritative messages from the God of truth to the 
children of men. It seems desirable, then, to offer here 
a brief outline of the general course of argument, by 
which our faith in the Gospel and in the Scriptures is 
sustained ; since a laborious effort has lately been made 
to involve the whole theory of Christian belief in confu- 
sion and darkness. 

" Whoever would take the religious literature of the 
present day as a whole, and endeavour to make out 
clearly on what basis revelation is supposed by it to 
rest, whether on authority, on the inward light, on 
reason, on self-evidencing Scripture, or on the combina- 
tion, of the four, or of some of them, and in what pro- 
portions, would probably find that he had undertaken 
a perplexing but not altogether profitless inquiry." 1 
Such is the contribution to the guidance of young and 
unsettled minds, which forms the close of nearly eighty 
pages of disquisition on the " Tendencies of Keligious 
Thought in England," and of a review of the whole 
series of English works on the evidences of Christianity. 
But if all past arguments by the ablest men, on behalf 
of Christianity, are inconsistent and almost worthless 
by the admission of clergymen and Christian divines 
themselves, the sceptic may well conceive that his 
cause is gained, and that the Gospel of Christ is worn 

1 Ess. vi. p. 329. 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 201 

out and effete in the view of its own official guardians. 
The idea, also, of sending young students to the religious 
literature of the present clay, " as a whole," in order to 
solve for themselves a difficult problem of theology, 
winch their teachers seem to abandon in despair, is 
much the same as it would have been, at the beginning, 
to recommend a dip into chaos in order to guess out 
the nature of the coming world. 

A healthy eye is required for perfect vision. But it 
is not needful, happily, to know whether our sight 
depends on the cornea or the crystalline lens, on the 
aqueous or the vitreous humour, or "on a combination 
of the four, or of some of them, and in what order and 
proportion," before we can discern and rejoice in the 
presence of a beloved friend. A humble heart and a 
healthy conscience will lead the most unlettered Chris- 
tian to a firm belief in the Gospel, and in the truth of 
the sacred Scriptures, though he may never have cared 
to settle what share each kind of evidence may have had 
in this result. Such inquiries may be objects of lawful 
curiosity to spiritual anatomists ; and when humbly and 
cautiously pursued, like the dissection of the natural 
eye, may enrich our Christian theology with deeper 
views of the Divine wisdom ; but they leave the actual 
processes of spiritual vision wholly unaltered. The 
simplest cottager and the most subtle metaphysician 
stand here on the same level ; and those who are quite 
unable to describe the steps of the mental process may 
be able to discern with fullest certainty " the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus 
Christ." 1 

The steps, by which the early disciples were led to 
Christian faith, stand out before us in clear and full 
relief in the New Testament. The miracles of our 

1 Note E. Theories of Religions Belief. 



202 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Lord and his Apostles made a first and simple appeal 
to their senses and to their hearts. The most thought- 
less who witnessed them were arrested by the sight ; 
and all who were not withheld by strong Jewish pre- 
judice, or the debasing power of idolatry, owned at once 
the finger of God, and the authority of His chosen mes- 
sengers. But where strong Jewish prejudices had to 
be overcome, the next appeal was to the word of pro- 
phecy. The Apostles reasoned with their Jewish adver- 
saries out of their own Scriptures, " opening and alleg- 
ing that it was needful the Christ should suffer, and 
should rise again from the dead, and that this Jesus " 
whom they preached " was indeed the Christ." There 
was thus a striking example of what has been aptly 
termed in physical science, " the Consilience of Induc- 
tions." The results separately derived from the occur- 
rence of many miraculous signs, and from the plain ful- 
filment of many predictions, in which the prophets had 
announced a despised, rejected, and suffering Messiah, 
led to the same conclusion ; that Jesus of Nazareth, 
though rejected and despised by his own countrymen, 
was truly the Christ of God. This truth was further 
established, to the early believers, by miraculous gifts 
which many of them received; by their own joyful 
experience of the pardoning love of God in Christ ; by 
their consciousness of the sanctifying power of the 
Gospel in their own hearts ; and by the abundant fruits 
of it, which they witnessed daily in the lives of their 
fellow believers. 

This order, so clear in the case of the first disciples, 
is varied a little, and only a little, in the case of modern 
disciples, born amidst the institutions and traditions of a 
Christian land, who have the Bible placed in their hands 
from childhood as the word of God. First of all, they 
receive the Scriptures with a human faith, on the autho* 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 203 

rity of parents and teachers, and of an almost unani- 
mous assent of good and wise men, whose conversation 
and writings are like an atmosphere of Christian thought 
that surrounds them on every side. When they read 
the New Testament, they find in every page the signs 
of its general truth and credibility. They are thus 
brought at once, face to face, within view of the same 
double evidence of miracles and j^rophecy, which com- 
pelled the faith of the early disciples. The miracles of 
our Lord and his Apostles stand revealed to them with 
full historical proofs of their reality ; and the agreement 
between Jewish prophecies and the life and death of 
Christ is no less clear, than when appealed to by the 
apostles themselves in the synagogues of Palestine, and 
of the Roman world. Distance of time, in the case of 
the miracles, may have made the impression less vivid, 
but cannot affect the substantial force of the argument. 
But there are further confirmations of the gospel, not 
shared in those early days, from the fulfilled prophecies 
of the New Testament, in the spread and permanence of 
the gospel, the overthrow and ruin of the temple, and 
the long-lasting desolation and dispersion of the Jewish 
people. 

When once the truth of Christ has been practically 
embraced, still fuller evidence dawns upon the heart of 
believers. They feel the power and comfort of its 
gracious promises. Their conscience, taught by the 
Spirit of God, responds with delight to the beauty of its 
Divine morality. They perceive, with growing clear- 
ness, the harmony of its doctrines both with the wants 
of man and with the attributes of God. And thus their 
experience, while they submit with reverence and hu- 
mility to the Divine messages, illustrates the truth of 
their Lord's promise : — " To him that hath shall be 
given, and he shall have more abundance ;" while bor- 



204 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

derers and theological triflers, who keep the truth at 
arm's length from their own conscience, for subtle and 
curious speculation alone, fall too often under the edge 
of the solemn warning : — " From him that hath not, 
even that he hath shall be taken away." 

There may be a stage, however, in the course of 
serious and thoughtful inquirers, in which their faith in 
the gospel itself is unshaken, but their traditional trust 
in the Bible is sorely tried, and in some measure gives 
way. With growing thought and knowledge, difficulties 
once overlooked start out into sudden relief, and may 
seem for a time to be unsurmountable. They have 
been accustomed from childhood to hear the Bible 
spoken of as one book, the word of Grod. They examine 
it more closely, with the help of classical knowledge 
.since acquired, and see that it consists of many works, 
in two different languages, written by many different 
writers at remote periods of time ; and bears traces, in 
every part, of its human authorship, — in language, 
grammar, idiom, style, historical features, and even in 
some cases, in its doctrinal tone. They have been ac- 
customed, again, to hear it denned by entire freedom 
from all error. But they find that errors of translation, 
errors of transcription, and readings probably defective, 
though comparatively slight in amount, are admitted 
almost universally by well-informed scholars to exist 
within its pages, so that the ideal perfection, once ascribed 
to it, seems to disappear. They find numbers, here and 
there, which seem plainly to need emendation; and 
details, which appear more or less contradictory, in 
different accounts of the same event. Quotations from 
the Old Testament in the New do not seem always 
strictly to correspond, even in words ; and the meaning 
assigned, in some cases, does not appear on the first 
glance to be the natural and genuine interpretation. 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 205 

Again, large portions in some of the books of the Old 
Testament seem to be useless details, that bear no stamp 
of Divinity, and are difficult to reconcile with the 
theory of a direct, miraculous, and all-perfect inspiration. 
These perplexities, and a few others of the same kind, 
when they first dawn upon the young Christian student, 
without destroying or perhaps sensibly weakening his 
faith in the Gospel itself, may easily induce him to 
imitate the Alexandrian mariners, when they cast out 
the wheat into the sea with their own hands, to lessen 
or avert the danger of total shipwreck. The plenary 
inspiration of the Scriptures may then be regarded as a 
superstitious accessary, a needless incumbrance of the 
Christian faith ; which, in an hour of peril, out of love 
to that faith itself, it may be needful to sacrifice and 
cast away. 

A looser faith in the inspiration of the whole Bible, 
when it arises from such causes, ought not to be con- 
founded with a settled spirit of unbelief. It may be 
only like froth and scum on the surface in a process of 
fermentation, by which a passive and merely traditional 
belief is passing into a more powerful, active, and living- 
faith, the new wine of the kingdom of God. Men may 
profess to believe the whole Bible without an effort, 
when they have never appropriated or applied one 
single truth. But when some doctrines, or some books, 
begin to live intensely in their hearts, others may seem 
by contrast to be like dead branches, which it would be 
a gain, rather than a loss to prune away. 

Faith in Christianity, and a belief in the inspiration 
of the whole Bible, may either be confounded together 
and identified, or too widely dissevered. One error 
involves some degree of superstition. The other pro- 
duces a dim and misty faith, with some tendency to a 
dangerous rejection of the truth of God. 



206 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

The words of Christ in the gospels, the facts of His 
death and resurrection, and the great truths and doc- 
trines derived from them, might have been transmitted 
by oral tradition alone, or by honest writers under no 
especial guidance and control of the Spirit of God. 
The truth, in this case, would have been earlier and 
more largely mingled with partial error. It must have 
been liable, in a few generations, to a more rapid de- 
generacy and corruption, and the means of later refor- 
mation and recovery would be almost wholly removed. 
Still, facts have shown that even the presence of in- 
spired writings has been no full safeguard, either to 
Jews or Christians, against the entrance of wide and 
mischievous corruptions of the faith. They simply 
exclude one inlet of error, but many others still remain. 
Humble and earnest hearts, in all ages of the church, 
have often found the way of salvation by oral teach- 
ing alone ; and those discourses of Christ, or words of 
his Apostles, which have formed the chief nourishment 
of Christian faith and piety, might plainly have been 
recorded and j)reserved by honest witnesses, even 
though the rest of the works in which they were pre- 
served bore many traces of infirmity and error. 

The relation between the writings of the New Tes- 
tament and the Grospel they reveal resembles closely 
that of the Apostles to the Lord who sent them forth. 
All of them bore the stamp of His authority and com- 
mission. Two or three of them are rather prominent 
in the course of the history. But of .the greater part 
little more is recorded than their names alone. All 
seem to delight to veil themselves in obscurity, that the 
name of their Lord and Master may stand out in fuller 
relief. 

Now the same remark applies to the separate books 
of the New Testament. All are full of one great 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 207 

subject, Jesus Christ. But they speak almost nothing 
of themselves, and of each other. The three earlier 
gospels were all composed before many of the epistles, 
and yet these contain only two or three allusions to 
one of them only. No mention is made of the name 
of their authors, and there is no quotation from any 
of them, except one very brief clause. St. Paul himself, 
in his last epistle, gives no list of those he had pre- 
viously written, which were to be included in the canon. 
The four other apostles give no list of the written 
gospels. Only one clear allusion occurs in their letters 
even to St. Paul's epistles ; where St. Peter gives a 
highly important testimony to these writings of his 
brother apostle, and places them in the same rank with 
the earlier Scriptures, but supplies us with no catalogue 
of their names (2 Pet. iii. -16). Thus the New Testa- 
ment contains no hint that a correct knowledge of the 
limits of its own canon, without excess or defect, was a 
leading essential of the Christian faith. Such an article 
could not enter the creed while the canon was still 
unfinished, and has not been added in later times. 
Even the warning at the close of the Apocalypse (Rev. 
xxii. 18, 19), while it enforces the guilt and danger of 
wilfully corrupting the word of God, either by subtrac- 
tion or addition, directly applies to that book alone ; 
and it is accompanied by no list of the completed canon, 
so as to enrol this knowledge among the essentials 
of Christian faith. On the contrary, every church was 
left to acquire it, slowly and gradually, by receiving 
those books or epistles which were proved to be written 
by apostles, or had received distinct apostolic attesta- 
tion ; and the actual canon had its birth out of the 
agreement of these results in different churches. An 
error on this point would simply leave the Christian 
with a less pure or less complete medium for acquiring 



208 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Divine knowledge, but would not affect the main out- 
line of the facts of the gospel, or the grand and essential 
doctrines of Christianity. 

Again, the inspiration and authority of the Bible are 
not synonymous with entire freedom from the intrusion 
of the slightest error. We cannot conceive, indeed, 
that messages from the Grod of truth should contain 
the least error, flaw, or contradiction, at the moment 
when they issue from their heavenly Source, and before 
their actual transmission to mankind. It seems the 
simplest view, therefore, to ascribe absolute perfection 
and freedom from error to each autograph, as it pro- 
ceeded at first from its inspired penman ; and this 
simplest view may be the truest also. But it is unwise 
to place the essence of the doctrine in a circumstance 
which is nowhere distinctly revealed, and which does 
not apply to the chief practical difficulty. For the 
autographs of the Bible have never existed together : 
the earliest had doubtless perished long before the later 
ones were written. A Bible, then, gifted with this 
ideal and mathematical perfection, has never been in 
the hands of a single human being. The Bible, which 
alone has been accessible to the great body of the 
church from the earliest times until now, is, either in 
whole or in part, a translation from copies of the first 
originals ; and possible, and even actual errors, both of 
copyists and translators, must be allowed to exist in its 
pages. The narrow limit of such mistakes is, practically, 
of the highest importance ; but questions of degree dis- 
appear, and one slight or solitary corruption of the text 
becomes as fatal as the most extensive or the most 
numerous, when once we define Bible inspiration by 
the negative character of entire freedom from all error. 

The only true and safe definition of Bible inspiration 
must be of a positive kind. These books are written 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 209 

by accredited messengers of God, for a special purpose, 
in order to be a standing record of Divine truth for the 
use of mankind.. They are thus stamped throughout 
with a Divine authority. And this authority belongs 
to every part, even in that form in which the message 
reaches every one of us ; until clear reasons can be shewn 
for excepting any portion from the high sanction which 
belongs naturally to the whole. There are two ways in 
which such an exception may arise. It may be shewn 
by historical evidence that such a verse, or clause, or 
construction, is due to wrong translation, or a defective 
reading, and is disproved by exact criticism, or by 
earlier or more numerous manuscripts. Or else, the 
mere fact of a discrepancy may prove in itself the pre- 
sence of a slight error, though we may be unable to 
point out, historically, when or how it first entered into 
the text. Such flaws, however, few in number, and 
chiefly in numerical readings or lists of names, cannot 
affect in the least the direct evidence, which affixes 
a Divine sanction to all the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testaments. But when errors are asserted to 
exist which cannot be referred, with any show of 
reason, to changes due merely to the transmission of 
the message, as when the narrative of Genesis i. is 
pronounced to be scientifically false in every part, or 
the genealogies of the patriarchs are affirmed to be a 
mere disguise of national migrations, then a blow is 
aimed at the very root of the authority of the Scrip- 
tures. They are plainly degraded, from being faithful 
messages of God, to the level of erroneous and decep- 
tive writings of fallible men. 

Let us now turn to the other aspect of the inquiry, 
and see what are the conclusions we may fairly gather 
from the simple fact that God has been pleased to em- 
body his own messages in a written form. 

P 



210 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

First of all, there is nothing accidental in the gift 
of written revelation. It marks the entrance of a new 
and remarkable era in the history of the world. Nearly 
three thousand years had passed, before we have any 
proof or sign that any Divine message was embodied 
in a permanent record. But when the chosen people 
were brought out of Egypt, the gift of a written law was 
plainly designed, from the first, to be one especial feature 
of the new dispensation. The old Mosaic economy 
centred in] the revelation of the Law on Mount Sinai. 
And this law was not only proclaimed miraculously 
by the voice of God out of the clouds and thick dark- 
ness, but it was miraculously placed on record by the 
hand of God himself. " The tables were the work of 
God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven on 
the tables." These tables of stone, engraven a second 
time by the finger of the Almighty, were afterwards 
enclosed in " the ark of testimony " under the mercy 
seat, in the most sacred recess of the tabernacle of God. 
But the whole series of Divine laws, enshrined in the 
facts of sacred history, was also from the first committed 
to writing at the command of God. This is taught in 
the ordinance of the Passover, and the later directions 
concerning it, which imply that a permament record 
was to be made for use after entrance into Canaan. 
It is implied, again, at the waters of Marah, and after 
the gift of the manna ; and is distinctly affirmed at the 
time of the conflict with Amalek. " And the Lord said 
unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in the book, and 
rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put 
out the name of Amalek from under heaven." When 
the sacred code was complete, just as the two tables, 
miraculously graven, were already placed within the 
ark, so this book of the law, the national code of Israel, 
was given to the Levites, and placed " in the side of 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 211 

the ark of the covenant of the Lord." (Deut. xxxf. 2G.) 
After twenty-five centuries, during which the world 
had been without a written revelation, ever since the 
miraculous gift of the Law in flames of fire on Mount 
Sinai, and onward through more than three thousand 
years to the present day, such revelations have formed 
one main feature in the history of the moral government 
of mankind. 

Now if we ask the reasons of this great change, 
they seem at once to suggest themselves to a reflective 
mind. While laws are very few and simple, and the 
facts which it is desired to register are also few, mere 
oral tradition may well suffice without any written 
record. Such a tradition, in early times, when confined 
to a small number of particulars, might be preserved 
and handed down with great tenacity, and even appear 
doubly sacred to those who were its depositaries, be- 
cause it was entrusted to the fidelity of their memory 
alone. But when facts and laws are multiplied, a 
written record is necessary, or the truth will rapidly be 
obscured and lost. There are millions who could 
remember twenty or thirty lines of verse, but only a 
few here and there who could recollect and repeat 
twenty or thirty thousand. Now with the lapse of 
time those facts of Divine providence, which it was 
desirable to keep before the minds of men, were con- 
tinually multiplied ; and, with the entrance of the legal 
economy, the great moral precepts were unfolded into 
a large variety of personal and national duties, and 
increased by a system of typical ordinances and cere- 
monial commands. These reasons, while they account 
for the transition from merely oral to written revela- 
tion, would lead us to infer that this new and higher 
mode of revelation, after being once introduced, would 
never cease to the end of time. For the facts of 

p 2 



212 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Providence worthy of memorial, and the precepts and 
promises, the doctrines and examples, based upon them, 
must naturally go on increasing in later generations of 
mankind. 

Revelations from God to man, when reduced to 
writing, secure plainly a double object. They are more 
definite and more permanent. They are less liable 
to be varied, and thus gradually corrupted, by erroneous 
additions ; and they are also less liable to die out and be 
forgotten. After a season of decay and apostasy their 
power may be revived anew by a fresh appeal to the 
original documents. Such was eminently the case with 
the Jews in the reigns of Jehoshaphat and of Josiah, 
and still more remarkably on their return from Babylon. 
It was a feature equally conspicuous in the Protestant 
Reformation. This double purpose is seen in the 
Divine message, when the Law was repeated. " Ye 
shall not add unto the word which I command you, 
neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may 
keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I 
command you." 

Now it is plain that the first of these two objects, 
instead of being secured, would be frustrated and re- 
versed, if these written messages, from the very first, 
were loaded and disfigured by any sensible incrustation 
of human error. We may assume that, if God conveyed 
his messages through human agents, all the charac- 
teristics of those agents, except moral defect and false- 
hood, would be permitted to appear in the record, and 
thus become a further -pledge of its reality and historical 
truth. But if this condescension were to extend still 
further, so as to allow their mistakes and ignorances, 
their sins and follies, to stain and disfigure commu- 
nications which claimed to be Divine ; then the means 
devised to secure the permanence of God's truth 



CHRISTIANITY AND WRITTEN REVELATION. 213 

would, so far, exactly reverse its office, and would give 
permanence to error and falsehood, under the apparent 
sanction of the God of truth. Such a view of the 
Scriptures is therefore exposed to an objection, on 
a priori grounds, which it would require no slight 
amount of direct evidence to overcome. A means 
devised by the wisdom of God to give permanence, 
through all later ages, to his own truth, would be 
strangely diverted, so as to produce a result precisely 
opposite, and stereotype historical misconceptions and 
religious falsehood. 

These reasons, which apply with great force to the 
first gift of a Divine revelation in a written form, do 
not warrant any expectation of a series of miracles to 
preserve its later transmission from every trace of care- 
lessness and error. Even where documents are of no 
special importance, the usual mistakes, in a single 
transcription, are comparatively few ; and the compari- 
son of several copies, at first hand, will enable us, almost 
without a shade of doubt, to restore the exact original. 
In the course of many successive copyings the risk of 
error will be slightly increased ; and it may be im- 
possible, after some lapse of time, to be quite certain 
with regard to every letter and word of the original 
document. But still these variations, at the worst, are 
of a very limited and subordinate nature. They are 
like straws or specks upon the surface of the writing, 
and do not penetrate its inner and vital texture. The 
same would be true, if the prophet, as a prophet, were 
secured from all error; but, as a simple amanuensis, 
were left, like later copyists, to the natural results of his 
own care in recording a message felt to be of high and 
sacred importance. 

The case, however, is widely different, if errors are 
interwoven into the message itself. There are, then, 



214 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

no means by which it can be eliminated, without tear- 
ing the whole to pieces, and destroying its authority. 
There is also, in this case, no assignable limit to the 
amount of error which may have entered in. The 
whole edifice of revealed religion would only rest upon 
a quicksand. No one would be able to say how much 
was true, how much was false ; where human corrup- 
tion reached its limit, and gave place to the tones of 
Divine truth and wisdom. Instead of stooping to the 
actual ignorance and blindness of man, to raise him once 
more into the light of heaven, such mingled messages 
would require almost a superhuman sagacity, to discern 
good from evil, and light from darkness, even in words 
apparently sealed with God's own signet. We may, 
therefore, well apply the question of Luther to such 
a view of Scripture and its inspiration, " Are we not 
ambiguous and uncertain enough already, without having 
our ambiguity and uncertainty increased to us from 
heaven?" The great end, for which the messages of 
Grod are conveyed to mankind in a written form, seems 
of itself to be a pledge of their Divine perfection, and 
echoes back to thoughtful Christians the sayings of their 
Lord, that " the Scripture cannot be broken," and that 
" till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall 
in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 215 



CHAPTER X. 

THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

The great change in the public relation between God and 
man, implied in the gift of written revelation, marked 
the opening of a new and nobler era in the history of 
the world. It was attended with signal displays of 
the Divine power, in the plagues of Egypt and the 
thunders of Sinai, and in great and terrible works of 
the God of Israel. Revealed religion was now to out- 
grow the narrow limits of human memory, and required 
a firmer and fuller record than oral tradition alone. 
The special acts of Divine power and wisdom, in 
former generations, were to be noted down, and faith- 
fully preserved for the instruction of every succeeding 
age. The great truths of religion and morality were to 
receive a larger development, and to be embodied in 
laws, and statutes, and ordinances, which required the 
study of a lifetime, rather than the recollection of a 
moment, and were to be handed down, in all their width 
and fulness, to many generations. 

All the circumstances which attended this change 
were such as to attest its high importance. The ten 
commandments, the sum and centre of the whole legal 
economy, were uttered first, amidst thunder, lightning, 
smoke, and fire, from the sacred top of Sinai, by the lips 
of Jehovah himself. They were twice miraculously 
graven on tables of stone by the finger of God, deposited 



216 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

within the ark of the covenant, in the most holy place of 
the tabernacle ; and again transferred, after five hundred 
years, to the most holy place in the temple of Solomon. 
Every reason, which prompted this new form of revela- 
tion, seems to require us to believe that the written 
word of God, when first bestowed on His people, was 
free from all sensible intermixture of human infirmity, 
moral imperfection, or historical falsehood. Such, 
accordingly, is the view of the law of Moses, which 
meets us continually in the later writings of the Old 
Testament. All their testimonies agree in tone with 
the words of the Psalmist — " The law of the Lord is 
perfect, converting the soul : the testimonies of the Lord 
are sure, making wise the simple : the statutes of the 
Lord are right, rejoicing the heart : the commandment 
of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes : more to be 
desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, 
sweeter also than honey, and the honeycomb." " Thy 
word is true from the beginning : every one of thy 
righteous judgments endureth for ever." 

It is needless, however, to multiply quotations from 
the Old Testament, to prove the high veneration in 
which the written Law was held by Jewish believers, 
and by the prophets who were also commissioned to 
speak the words of God to his people. The testimony 
of our Lord himself ought alone to be decisive with 
every Christian. We may apply his own words to the 
Jews with regard to the authority of Moses and the 
prophets, and say with truth, of professing Christians — 
If they believe not Christ and his Apostles, in their 
testimony to the earlier Scriptures, " neither will they 
be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Let us 
examine some of the chief passages in which this deci- 
sive evidence is given. 

1. The history of our Lord's ministry begins, in two 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 217 

of the gospels, with his temptation in the wilderness. 
The event, it is plain, unless the narrative were a gross 
imposture, must either have been personally reported 
by our Lord himself to his disciples, or made known 
by a supernatural revelation of the Spirit of God. In 
either case, its details come plainly to us with a divine 
sanction, even if the other parts of the gospels were 
uninspired history. 

Now the main feature of this narrative is the signal 
honour paid by the Son of God himself to the written 
word. By this sword of the Sjoirit every onset of the 
mighty and subtle Tempter is repelled. " It is written," 
is the one reply, thrice repeated, which has power to 
quench in a moment " all the fiery darts of the wicked 
one." Even when Scripture, shortened and garbled, is 
used in the temptation, still Scripture is the only reply. 
The kingdoms of the world, and all their glory, are 
weighed by our Lord and Saviour against one single 
sentence of Scripture, one word of the law of Moses ; 
and they are only like dust in the balance in the eyes of 
him who was filled with " the Spirit of wisdom and 
understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the 
Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." It is 
a startling lesson, which fallen sinners are slow to learn, 
but which stands out in clear relief in this wonderful 
narrative, sealed by the testimony of the Son of God — 
that obedience to one sentence of the law of Moses is a 
treasure more to be desired than all the riches and 
glories of the outward universe. 

2. After the temptation our Lord began his public 
ministry, and soon transferred it from Judea to Galilee, 
and from Nazareth to Capernaum, by the Lake of Ti- 
berias. One main and striking feature of this whole 
ministry was its Galilean theatre. This gives a tinge 
and colouring to almost every later allusion in the Book 



218 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

of Acts. " Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven ?" " Behold, are not all these which speak, 
Galileans ?" " That word ye know, which began from 
Galilee, after the baptism which John preached." " He 
was seen many days of them which came up with him 
from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto 
the people." 

What now, by the testimony of the Evangelist, was 
one chief motive which led our Saviour to transfer his 
ministry from Judea to Galilee ? A distinct reply is 
given : " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
Esaias the prophet, saying, ' The land of Zebulon, . . . 
Galilee of the Gentiles, the people that sat in darkness 
saw a great light ; and to them which sat in the region 
and shadow of death, light is sprung up." The force 
of the prediction lies in the simple apposition between 
the especial scene of sorrow and desolation in the early 
stages of the captivity, and the first appearance of the 
light and joy of Messiah's presence. Still, the link was 
so real and powerful, that, to fulfil this prophecy, the 
Lord of glory forsook Judea, and chose the shores of the 
sea of Galilee for the chief and most favoured scene of 
all his earthly ministry. A single sentence of the 
prophet, being a Divine message, had thus power to 
impress its distinctive character on the whole public life 
of the Son of God. 

3. Our Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount, assumes 
his appointed character as the great Lawgiver. And 
first, near its opening, he defines his relation to the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament in these words : 
" Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the 
prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For 
verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one 
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till 
all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 219 

of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, 
shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven : but 
whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be 
called great in the kingdom of heaven." 

Several things require careful notice in this passage. 
And first, our Lord ratifies the truth and sacredness of 
the law of Moses by the same emphatic phrase, which 
he applies elsewhere to his own weightiest sayings — 
" Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall 
not pass away." Secondly, he extends his full sanction 
to every " jot and tittle " of the written law of God. 
Thirdly, since he addressed a Jewish audience, there 
can be no doubt that his hearers understood, by this 
" law," the whole Pentateuch at least, or the five Books 
of Moses. Fourthly, the words were spoken to remove 
a probable misconception, arising from a certain per- 
ceptible contrast of tone between that law and our 
Lord's own sayings. He assures his disciples that the 
seeming contrast was no real contradiction. His teach- 
ing was an expansion and supplement of that contained 
in the law of Moses, but did not abrogate it, or set it 
aside. Fifthly, the statement seems plainly inconsistent 
with the notion, that this law, as first given, in one jot 
or tittle, contained any real error ; or that it had con- 
tracted any error in its actual form, which a sincere and 
humble learner might not easily separate from the law 
itself, so as to leave the latter in its real purity. 
Sixthly, the prophets are included along with the Law 
itself in a common recognition. The tone of the whole 
statement, so solemnly made, is wholly adverse to the 
theory of an intermittent, mongrel, and imperfect in- 
spiration, which leaves part of the contents of the Old 
Testament to be Divine, and other parts to be the mis- 
taken words of fallible men. 

Towards the close of the discourse, a similar allusion 



220 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

recurs. " Therefore all things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do unto you, even so do unto them : 
for this is the law and the prophets." 

Here the reason given by our Lord for this simple 
aphorism of moral duty is deeply instructive. He does 
not point out its agreement with instincts of natural 
equity. He does not rest it simply on his own Divine 
authority. The reason which enforces it is of another 
kind. It is the sum of " the law and the prophets." 
It concentrates the various lessons of social duty, which 
God had given in such various forms and portions 
throughout the range of the Old Testament. No state- 
ment could more plainly imply the binding authority 
of the written word, of the Law and the Prophets, 
over the disciples of Christ as true messages from 
heaven. 

4. The charge is given to the leper, after his cure — 
" Go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the 
gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto 
them." 

The quotations in the narrative of the temptation are 
all from Deuteronomy. But here our Lord refers to the 
Book of Leviticus, and to a chapter full of ceremonial 
details. He enforces their authority by his own command 
to the leper, and at the same time gives direct testimony 
to their Mosaic authorship. No statement could prove 
more clearly that, in the view of our Lord, the Pen- 
tateuch was of Divine origin, and still binding in its 
precepts on the Jewish people. 

Again, in his reply to the Pharisees, he says — " Go 
and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and 
not sacrifice." Here he quotes a brief clause from 
Hosea, one of the minor prophets, appeals to it as a 
message of God, and ascribes the sin and folly of his 
opposers to their neglect of its true meaning. 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 221 

5. After the message of the Baptist, our Lord speaks 
to his disciples as follows : — 

" But what went ye out to see ? A prophet ? yea, I 
say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he 
of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger 
before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before 
thee .... For all the prophets and the law prophesied 
until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, 
which was for to come." 

This passage is full of attestations by our Lord to 
the authority of the Old Testament, as composed, from 
first to last, of the true sayings of God. First, he quotes 
from Malachi, the very latest of the prophets, and 
affirms that, in the coming of the Baptist, one of that 
prophet's predictions was fulfilled. Next, he declares 
that, in a certain sense, another prediction of the same 
prophet about Elias also applied to the Baptist, and 
had a fulfilment in him. Thirdly, he implies that all 
the prophets were God's messengers, but that John was 
honoured above them, because of his nearness to Messiah, 
who was the great object of hope in all their messages. 
Fourthly, he arranges the course of Providence, not by 
a reference to worldly empires, but to the series of these 
Divine revelations, as if they formed the true key to all 
history. First came the Law, then the Prophets, the 
sequel of the Law ; and, last and greatest of these, 
the Baptist ; then the first days of the Kingdom of 
Heaven. The words imply a series of Divine messen- 
gers, completed by Christ himself, the great Messenger 
of the Covenant, with whom a new era of light and 
mercy was to begin. The close of the same chajDter 
alludes to the history, in Genesis, of the overthrow of 
Sodom, and bears a solemn testimony to its historical 
truth. 

6. Matt. xii. 3, 7. " Have ye never read what David 



222 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

did when he was an hungered, and they that were with 
him ? . . . But if ye had known what this meaneth, I 
will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have 
condemned the guiltless." 

The appeal is here made to a simple history in 
the First Book of Samuel ; from which, compared with 
the words of Hosea, an inference is drawn that the 
act of his disciples was quite lawful. But there is also 
a reference to the law of Moses with regard to the 
tabernacle or temple service of the priests. Thus we 
have, in this one passage, a threefold testimony of 
Christ, that the Old Testament history is trustworthy 
in its facts, and a Divine record from which moral 
inferences may be safely and certainly drawn ; that the 
minor prophets are inspired Scripture, in which the 
separate clauses are the words of God ; and that the 
Law, as a whole, including evidently the whole Penta- 
teuch, was worthy of full confidence, so that an appeal 
might be safely made to its implied facts, no less than 
to its direct statements, as a basis for moral and re- 
ligious reasoning. 

7. In Matt. xiii. 13 — 17, our Lord explains to his 
disciples the reason why he spoke to the multitude 
in parables, because of their spiritual blindness and 
indifference to the truth. He proceeds to say that the 
prophecy of Esaias was fulfilled in them — " By hearing 
ye shall hear, and not understand, and seeing ye shall 
see, and not perceive." The same prophecy is after- 
wards applied by St. Paul, at Borne, to the same unbelief 
of the Jews, at the very close of the sacred history, 
and is there styled the voice of the Holy Ghost. It is 
quoted a third time by St. John in the fourth gospel, 
with the same reference. No testimony could be more 
complete, on the part of our Lord and his two apostles, 
that the Book of Isaiah contains the words of the Holy 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 223 

Ghost ; and that the prophecy in Isaiah vi. is a true 
prediction of that Jewish blindness, which found its 
climax in the rejection of the gospel during the apostolic 
age. 

8. In Matt. xv. 1 — 9, we have another testimony to 
the Divine authority of the law of Moses, and of the 
prophecies of Isaiah. " Why do ye also transgress the 
commandment of God by your tradition ? For God 
commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother : 
and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the 
death." Here the commands in the Decalogue, and in 
the twentieth of Leviticus, are equally quoted as Divine. 
A broad moral contrast is also drawn between the 
written word, of which the binding authority is affirmed, 
and those Pharisaic traditions which had obscured its 
meaning, and practically destroyed its authority. The 
words of Isaiah, chap, xxix., are also quoted as being an 
undoubted voice of the Spirit of God. But if the Old 
Testament Scriptures, in any part, were purely human 
writings, and not Divine messages, then our Lord, by 
his constant appeal to them, without making any dis- 
tinction between them, would be guilty of the very sin 
he condemns so strongly in the Pharisees, and would 
be included under his own censure — " In vain do they 
worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments 
of men." 

9. The history of the transfiguration, as recorded by 
St. Mark, offers another explicit testimony of the same 
kind. " And he answered and told them, Elias verily 
cometh first, and restoreth all things ; and how it is 
written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many 
things, and be set at nought. But I say unto you that 
Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him 
whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him." 

The exact reference of these last words is not per- 



224 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

fectly clear. But this makes the appeal of our Lord to 
the written word, not only with reference to his own 
sufferings, but those of the Baptist, doubly striking. His 
deeper wisdom, when contrasted with the knowledge of 
his early disciples, or modern half-disciples, instead of 
leading him to discern errors and imperfections in the 
Old Testament, only revealed to him in its pages definite 
predictions of specific events in distant ages, where 
only a dim haze might be visible to common eyes. His 
own sufferings were all " as it was written," and those 
of his forerunner who came " in the spirit and power of 
Elias," were also " as it was written of him." His 
words teach us distinctly to rest upon the truth of 
Scripture, and the certainty of its prophetic intima- 
tions, even where we see through a glass, dimly, and 
its meaning by no means stands out to us in clear and 
full relief. 

10. The reply to the question of the Pharisees on 
divorce is of peculiar interest. Our Lord bears witness 
in it to the Divine authority of that early part of 
Genesis, which has been assailed of late by so many 
unbelieving doubts and criticisms. " Have ye not read, 
that he which made them at the beginning made them 
male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man 
leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and 
they two shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no 
more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath 
joined together, let not man put asunder." 

Now here, first of all, the very form of the apj)eal 
shows that what the Pharisees read in their own Scrip- 
tures, in Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets, they 
were bound to receive as the words of God. " Have ye j 
not read ?" This implies evidently — whatever you read [i 
in those Scriptures which you habitually receive, you \{ 
are bound to regard as Divine truth, and of decisive j| 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 225 

authority in all moral questions. Next, our Lord does 
not fall back on his own authority. He rests his 
answer on a decision already given. A single verse in 
the second of Genesis, which critical anatomists would 
transfer from Moses, the inspired prophet, to some 
unknown patcher-up of ancient documents hundreds 
of years later, is, in the view of Christ, a Divine 
statute, of binding authority to all mankind. " What 
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put 
asunder." He proceeds to adopt the statement of the 
Pharisees, that Moses gave the precept about the bill 
of divorcement ; and explains that its nature was 
simply permissive, and designed to lessen and restrain 
evils, which had their source in the hardness of their 
own hearts. The design of the law was not to sanction 
capricious divorce, but to exclude a further and still 
more aggravated sin. 

11. The actions and the teachings of our Lord during 
the earlier days of Passion week abound in evidence 
of the same truth. He sends his disciples for the colt, 
with the message, " The Lord hath need of him," 
because it was needful that a prediction of Zechariah 
should be fulfilled. He condemns the sin of the Jews 
by a double reference to Isaiah and Jeremiah : "It 
it written, My house shall be called a house of prayer ; 
but ye have made it a den of thieves." He silences 
their censure of the children by a still more pointed 
appeal to the Psalms. " Yea : have ye never read, 
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast 
perfected praise ? " In his answer to the question 
about his own authority, he accepts the principle that 
authority from God was required in such a message, 
and implies that John, like all the prophets, had this 
authority. After the parable of the vineyard, he makes 
his appeal to the written word once more. " Did ye 

Q 



226 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the 
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the 
corner : this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in 
our eyes ? " He then reasons out the consequences of 
this Scriptural prophecy in the Psalm, and confirms 
them by a reference to two others in Isaiah and Daniel. 
" And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken ; 
but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to 
powder." The double allusion to two prophecies re- 
specting Messiah is plain. " He shall be for a stone of 
stumbling, and for a rock of offence, to both the houses 
of Israel : and many among them shall stumble and fall, 
and be broken, and snared, and taken." Is. viii. 15. 
" Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, 
which smote the image upon its feet of iron and clay, and 
brake them in pieces. Then was the iron and clay, the 
brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, 
and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, 
and the wind carried them away." Dan. ii. 34, 35. "We 
have thus, from the lips of our Lord in this one passage, 
both a confirmation of the authority of three different 
books of prophecy, and a striking testimony to the 
secret unity of Divine wisdom, which runs through the 
whole range of these various messages of God. One 
verse in the Psalms is a Divine key, which expounds 
the mutual relation of two distinct warnings, one in 
Isaiah to the Jews, and another in Daniel to those 
Gentiles, who were long afterwards to be called in their 
room. 

12. The answers to the Sadducees and to the lawyers 
are peculiarly instructive. And first, our Lord ascribes 
all the religious errors of the Sadducees to one source, 
ignorance of their own Scriptures. " Ye do err, not 
knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." He 
appeals to the record in Exodus, as being truly a Divine 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 227 

message. " Have ye not read that which was sjDoken 
unto you by God ?" He infers confidently the truth of 
the resurrection of the dead from a single title of God 
on the face of the record. " I am the God of Abraham, 
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is 
not the God of the dead, but of the living." It may be 
added that the same reply, which put the Sadducees to 
silence, ought equally, among professing Christians, to 
silence and condemn a vast amount of Sadducean criti- 
cism about Elohistic and Jehovistic documents; as if 
either Moses were not the author of the Pentateuch, or 
else the names of God were introduced by him hap-hazard, 
in a strange Mosaic, according to the accidental charac- 
ter of materials ready made to his hand. 

The reply to the lawyer (Matt. xxii. 40) is not less 
instructive. " On these two commandments hang all 
the law and the prophets." Now these two precepts, 
in the eye of sound reason, are pure, essential, and im- 
mutable moral truth. And yet all the Law and the 
Prophets, our Lord assures us, depend upon them. How 
can falsehood depend upon pure and eternal truth ? or 
how can imperfect morality be any real corollary from 
the great commandments of perfect love ? 

Again, the question which silenced the Pharisees 
reveals in a striking manner the authority and Divine 
inspiration of the Psalms of David. One verse of 
Psalm ex. convicts them of ignorance respecting the 
true character of the promised Messiah. It is a Divine 
enigma, our Lord indirectly shews us, of which the 
only solution is in the great mystery of the gospel — the 
Word made flesh, of the seed of David — " of whom, as 
concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God 
blessed for ever." Thus one title of God in the Law, 
by our Lord's testimony, is an adequate basis for faith 
in the resurrection of all the faithful dead ; and another 

Q 2 



228 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

clause in the Psalms is also a sufficient evidence for 
that glorious truth, the Incarnation of the Son of 
God. 

13. The parting discourse against the Pharisees 
abounds with proofs of the full authority ascribed by 
our Lord to the written word of God. The Scribes 
and Pharisees, while sitting in Moses' seat, were to be 
observed and obeyed, even while their actions were 
condemned. Unless the law of Moses were truly of , 
Divine authority, such an instruction could never have 
been given. Their guilt lay in urging its minuter 
requirements, and omitting " the weightier matters of 
the law, judgment, mercy, and faith." Yet our Lord 
does not set aside even its least commandments, but 
confirms them. " These ought ye to have done, and 
not to leave the other undone." They witnessed 
against themselves that they were the children of those 
who had killed the prophets. The aggravation of 
their guilt clearly lay in the fact that the prophets 
were truly the messengers of God. " Thou that killest 
the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto 
thee," is the condemning charge against Jerusalem. 
In the next chapter the words of Daniel the prophet 
are quoted as a Divine prediction, with the caution, 
" Whoso readeth, let him understand." The history of 
the flood of Noah, and of the general destruction of man- 
kind, is also referred to as a solemn and undoubted 
reality, a warning for the days of his own return. 

14. The allusions to Scripture during the time of the 
Passion are, if possible, still more impressive. Every 
step in the pathway of the Man of sorrows seems 
here to be guided by a chart, which he saw clearly 
laid down for his own guidance in the word of God. 
" Ye know that after two days is the passover, and 
the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." For 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 229 

He was the true passover, and the time of his suffer- 
ings must correspond with the typical service, which 
had prefigured them for fifteen hundred years. His 
betrayal was to be the fulfilment of an inspired pro- 
phecy. " The Son of man goeth, as it is written of 
him ; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of 
man is betrayed : it had been good for that man if he 
had not been born." The type of the Nazarite was 
now to be fulfilled in him. " I will not drink hence- 
forth of this fruit of the vine, until the day when I 
drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." The 
fear and dispersion of his disciples would be the fulfil- 
ment of Zechariah's prophecy. " All ye shall be offended 
because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite 
the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be 
scattered abroad." The treachery of Judas is referred 
to the truth of Scripture as its secret explanation. 
" None of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that 
the Scripture might be fulfilled." Our Lord's patient 
submission to his enemies was in reverence to the re- 
vealed predictions of the written word. " Thinkest thou 
I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall pre- 
sently give me more than twelve legions of angels ? 
But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus 
it must be ?" The evangelist adds a brief commentary 
on the whole course of his betrayal : " All this was 
done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be ful- 
filled." Our Lord's reply to the high priest is a quota- 
tion from one of Daniel's prophecies. " Hereafter shall 
ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of 
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." The 
indignities he received were the fulfilment of Isaiah's 
prediction : "I hid not my face from shame and spit- 
ting." The purchase of the potter's field with the price 
of treachery was the fulfilment of another prophecy. 



230 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

" They parted his garments, casting lots : that it might 
be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They 
parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture 
they cast lots." The exclamation, Eli, Eli, lama sabach- 
thani, was a plain appropriation by our Lord, in the 
hour of his agony, of the twenty-second Psalm, as one 
connected prediction of his own sufferings, and of the 
glory that would follow. 

15. The gospel of St. Luke furnishes many other 
examples of this constant appeal to the Scriptures by 
our Lord as an authority without appeal. It will be 
enough to select some of the more striking, first before, 
and then during, the time of his passion. 

In Luke x. 25, we read that a lawyer stood up and 
tempted him, saying, " Master, what shall I do to in- 
herit eternal life ?" To this weighty inquiry our Lord 
replies at once by the question — " What is written 
in the law, how readest thou?" The second reply 
is a confirmation of the law's authority, and a virtual 
quotation — " Thou hast answered right : this do, and 
thou shalt live." In the next chapter, the truth 
of the history of Jonah is affirmed, and its typical 
character is declared, " For as Jonas was a sign to 
the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this 
generation." The two narratives of the queen of 
Sheba, and of the Ninevites, are both confirmed, and 
a moral is derived from each of them. A further testi- 
mony follows to the Divine mission of all the prophets 
of the Old Testament, and a promise that others would 
soon be sent forth, gifted with the like authority. The 
words of Micah are presently quoted (Luke xii. 51 — 53 ; 
Micah vii. 6), as a true prophecy of the divisions to be 
occasioned by the gospel. The prophets are again 
referred to, Luke xiii. 27 — 34, as the chosen messengers 
of God, and our Lord ranks himself among their number. 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 231 

" It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." 
In chapter xvi. we have the two emphatic declarations, 
— " It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for 
one tittle of the law to fail : " — and again, " If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they 
be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." The 
short and earnest caution, " Eemember Lot's wife," 
puts a seal of truth and inspiration on the histories 
of Genesis ; for it is founded on a single verse, never 
alluded to elsewhere in the later Scriptures for fifteen 
hundred years. The address to the disciples on the 
approach to Jerusalem is also peculiarly impressive : 
" Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that 
are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man 
shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered to 
the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully 
entreated, and spitted on, and they shall scourge him 
and put him to death, and the third day he shall rise 
again." 

16. The words of St. Luke, xxii. 37, deserve especial 
notice. " For I say unto you that this which is written 
must yet be accomplished in me, And he was num- 
bered among the transgressors : for even the things 
concerning me have their fulfilment (/rat yap ra. 7repl 

e/JLOV TeAo? e'x e v* 

Here our Lord not only applies to himself the words 
of Isaiah liii. 12, but gives this prediction the foremost 
place among the reasons why he was content to suffer, 
The word of God must not fail* It would fail unless 
the Messiah were reckoned among the transgressors, 
It might seem strange and unseemly that the Son of 
God should submit to so deep an indignity, but the 
truth of God's word must be maintained at any sacri- 
fice — " for even the things which relate to me," the 
promised Messiah, the Son of God, " have their fulfil- 



232 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

ment." The incarnate Son of Grod himself, by his own 
testimony, must be subject to the authority of the 
written word, and its announcements of his own suffer- 
ings were laws which even He must obey. 

The conversation with the two disciples, after the 
resurrection, repeats the same lesson. " fools, and 
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have 
spoken. Were not these the things it behoved the 
Christ to suffer, and to enter into his glory ? And 
beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he 
expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning himself." 

No statement can be more clear and express than 
that which our Lord has here made in the first bright 
dawn of his resurrection glory. He tells his disciples, 
that Moses and all the prophets contained predictions 
of his own sufferings ; that it was the dulness of their 
hearts alone which hindered them from perceiving the 
true application ; and that this reference was so real, as 
to create a moral necessity, beforehand, for the Messiah 
to suffer the very things which he himself had suffered. 
In other words, by refusing to suffer, and thus to fulfil 
these inspired predictions, he would have forfeited his 
claim to be the true Messiah of God. The truth of 
Scripture, in its prophecies, is thus made the moral basis 
of the whole work of redemption ; and a refusal to see 
the reference to our Lord and his deep humiliation in 
these predictions of the Law and the Prophets, is 
declared to be a sure proof of folly and blindness of 
heart. 

The same doctrine forms the substance of his parting 
address to his disciples in the same gospel, and is 
rendered still more striking by its connection with the 
gift, then bestowed upon them, of a clearer spiritual 
vision. " And he said unto them, These are the words 




THE INSPIRATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 233 

which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that 
all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the 
law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, 
concerning me. Then opened he their understandings, 
that they might understand the Scriptures, and said 
unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the 
Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third 
day ; and that repentance and remission of sins should 
be preached in his name among all nations, beginning 
at Jerusalem." Here our Lord gives his sanction to 
each of the three main divisions of the Jewish canon, 
the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa ; affirms 
that each contained jDrophecies concerning him, which 
the Divine veracity made it needful for him to fulfil ; 
that these predictions included not only his sufferings 
which were now past, but that preaching of the Gospel 
which was shortly to begin ; and in short, that the 
whole Christian dispensation rests upon a moral and 
imperative necessity, that the word of God in the pro- 
phecies of the Old Testament must inevitably be 
fulfilled. 

It is needless to quote in detail the passages to the 
same effect in the fourth Gospel — John i. 17, 21-23 ,* ver. 
29 ; (comp. Gen. xxii. 8) ; ver. 45 ; ii. 17, 22 ; iii. 14, 
15; iv. 5; v. 37-39, 45-47; vi. 14, 31-35, 45; vii. 19, 
22, 23, 37-39, 40-42; viii. 17, 18, 44, 52; x. 34-36; 
xii. 14-16, 37-41 ; xv. 25 ; xvii. 12 ; xviii. 4; xix. 24, 
28-30, 35-37 ; xx. 9 — or the numerous references to the 
authority of the Old Testament in the apostolic writings. 
In the Book of Acts we have ten quotations from the 
Psalms, five from Isaiah, and others from Genesis, 
Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joel, Amos, Habakkuk, 1 Kings. 
In St. Paul, thirty-seven from the Psalms, fifteen from 
Genesis, ten from Exodus, one from Numbers, thirteen 
from Deuteronomy, one from Joshua, one from 2 Samuel, 



234 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

two from 1 Kings, one from Job, three from Proverbs, 
twenty-seven from Isaiah, three from Jeremiah, from 
Hosea, and Habakkuk, and one from Joel, Haggai, and 
Malachi. In every instance the appeal to the Scriptures 
is made by the Apostle as to the sure fountain of 
heavenly truth. Their titles are, Scripture, the oracles 
of God, the words of the Holy Ghost. Both in the 
Gospels and the Epistles, " It is written," is the deci- 
sion for every doubt, and " Have ye not read in the 
Scriptures ?" is the rebuke for every form of ignorance 
and error. 

The conclusion which every sincere disciple of Christ 
must draw from these sayings of his Lord and Master, 
confirmed by those of his Apostles, is clear and self- 
evident. It is summed up for us in three general 
declarations of our Lord himself, and two of his chief 
Apostles. " The Scripture cannot be broken." " All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is pro- 
fitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for in- 
struction in righteousness." " Prophecy came not at 
any time by the will of man, but holy men of God 
spake as they were borne along by the Holy Ghost." 
The flaws which have been contracted in the transmis- 
sion of these messages, we may infer safely from these 
multiplied quotations, are so few and slight, that for 
every practical purpose they disappear from view. They 
may be detected here and there by a strong microscope 
of minute criticism ; but our Lord and his Apostles, in 
hundreds of quotations, bearing on the most vital points 
of doctrine, and on the most weighty facts of Old Testa- 
ment history, never find it needful once to allude to 
their existence, or to utter one caution against undue 
confidence in the sacred text. No contrast can be more 
total than between the unbelieving, flippant criticisms 
on the Old Testament, practised in our days by some 



THE INSP1KATI0N OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 235 

learned men, who still profess and call themselves 
Christians, and the tone of their Divine Lord and 
Master, before whose judgment seat they will stand, 
when deep reverence for their authority led him to re- 
nounce all angelic aid in the hour of his sorest conflict 
and deepest sorrow. " Thinkest thou that I cannot now 
pray to my Father, and he will presently give me more 
than twelve legions of angels. But how then shall the 
Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?" 



236 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

The Scriptures of the New Testament, from their later 
origin, are not capable of receiving that direct proof of 
their Divine inspiration and authority from the lips of 
Christ himself, which the Law, the Prophets, and the 
Psalms have received in such ample measure. Since 
they began to be composed several years after the Ascen- 
sion, and the latest of them were not written till near 
the death of the oldest apostle at the close of the first 
century, they could scarcely receive a collective attesta- 
tion even from the apostles themselves. There is also, in 
the historical Scriptures of both Testaments, a remark- 
able reticence on the part of the writers with regard to 
their own especial claims. The Lord of the prophets, 
when on earth, amidst the wonder caused by his 
miracles, " withdrew into the wilderness." The sacred 
historians, in like manner, seem to withdraw their own 
personality from our view, and are content to be simple 
witnesses of the facts they record ; and seldom reveal 
their own names, or speak of any special guidance 
and direction of the Spirit they have received. In 
the case of the Old Testament histories, this silence is 
amply compensated by the full testimony borne to their 
authority by our Lord himself. But in the parallel 
case of the Grospels and the Book of Acts no such com- 
pensation could occur. We are thrown, for the proof of 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 237 

their Divine inspiration, upon the combination of three 
different kinds of indirect evidence — the analogy of 
earlier Scripture, the promises of Christ, and scattered 
intimations in the later books of the New Testament. 

I. First, the inspiration and Divine authority of the 
Old Testament, established so firmly by the words and 
actions of our Lord himself, are a strong and almost 
irresistible presumption that the writings of the New 
Testament have the same especial character, and share 
the same authority. All the reasons which explain the 
first gift of written revelation at the time of the Exodus, 
in the growing number and importance of the facts of 
God's providence, which called for lasting memorial, 
and in the increasing fulness of the precepts, promises, 
and doctrines revealed, apply with equal or even 
superior force to the times of the Gospel. They form a 
most weighty presumption, from the precedent already 
given, that the facts of the gospel history, and the new 
and higher doctrinal teaching of our Lord and his 
Apostles, would not be left to chance and human error 
for their transmission to later times, but would also be 
embodied in writings of Divine authority, stamped, 
like those of the older covenant, with the signet of 
heaven. The teaching to be preserved was equally 
complex and various. The importance of keeping it 
free from adulteration was at least as great as in the 
earlier messages of the Law and the Prophets. A 
written revelation was no doubtful innovation, but was 
now become a kind of standing law of the providence 
of God. The higher dignity of Christ compared with 
Moses, and of the Gospel compared with the Law, made 
its careful transmission, pure from human error, still 
more plainly expedient and desirable. So that every 
reason, drawn from the existence of the Old Testament, 
would seem to make it certain that inspired writings, of 



238 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

similar authority, would be given to embody in a per- 
manent form, for the use of later ages, the oral teaching 
of Christ and his Apostles, and the wonderful truths 
of the incarnation, atonement, resurrection, and ascen- 
sion of the Son of God. 

II. This general reason, from the precedent of the 
Old Testament Scriptures, becomes doubly powerful 
from the special character of the new dispensation of 
the Gospel. The authority of the Law and the Prophets 
is continually referred to one cause — that the writers 
were guided and actuated by the Spirit of God. Thus 
we read of Moses : " I will take of the Spirit that is in 
thee, and will put it upon them. . . . And the Lord 
took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it to the 
seventy elders ; and it came to pass, when the Spirit 
rested on them, they prophesied and did not cease." 
" And Moses said to Joshua, Enviest thou for my sake ? 
Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, 
and the Lord would put his Spirit upon them." So 
David, as the sweet psalmist of Israel, describes his 
own messages, — " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, 
and his word was on my tongue." So, more generally, 
all the prophetic writings are called " the words which 
the Lord of Hosts sent in his Spirit by the former 
prophets" (Zech. vii. 12). One of the most usual forms 
of quotation from the Old Testament in the New is 
under the title, " the words " or " utterance " of " the 
Holy Ghost." 

The gift, then, of written revelation in the Law, the 
Prophets, and the Psalms, is distinctly and expressly 
referred to the Spirit of God. But the Gospel is 
eminently the dispensation of the Spirit. His presence 
after our Lord's ascension was to be so much more fully 
manifested, that by comparison it is said to be vouch- 
safed for the first time. " For the Holy Ghost was not 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 239 

yet, because that Jesus was not yet glorified," John 
vii. 39. The Apostles were ministers " of the new cove- 
nant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter 
killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." " How shall not 
the dispensation of the Spirit be rather glorious?" 

Now since one main work of the Spirit, even before 
the coming, of Christ, was the gift to the Jewish church 
of the written revelations in the Law of Moses, the 
Psalms, and the Prophets, and a much fuller manifesta- 
tion of his presence was distinctly promised under the 
Gospel, it seems inconceivable that the writers of the 
New Testament should not have enjoyed at least an 
equal measure of his Divine teaching and guidance, 
have been equally preserved from error, and their mes- 
sages have an equal claim to be called " the words of 
the Holy Ghost." We must else allow that the new 
dispensation, while in other respects an advance on the 
old, in this most important and vital element underwent 
a strange retrocession, from the Divine to the simply 
human, from the teaching of the Spirit to the words of 
men ; from pure truth, sealed with God's authority, to 
a mixed and imperfect record, subject to innumerable 
doubts, uncertainties, and abatements. This double 
presumption, though it rests in part on a priori grounds, 
and our natural sense of consistency and harmony in 
the ways of God, is still so simple and powerful, that 
very few thoughtful minds can resist its force, or view 
it as less than decisive. It does not help us to decide 
what books of the New Testament should be reckoned 
canonical. But it makes it almost impossible to resist 
the conclusion that some inspired records would be 
given under the Gospel, unless we reject the truth of 
our Lord's own repeated testimonies to the authority 
and inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures. In point of 
fact, scarcely an example can be found among Christians 



240 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

of a full admission of the Divine inspiration of the Old 
Testament, and of a denial that the same character is 
shared by the Gospels and other writings of the New 
Testament. 

III. A third presumption may be drawn from the 
same comparison with the earlier Scriptures, to confirm, 
not only the authority of New Testament' writings in 
the abstract, but the general outline of our actual canon. 
For the Old Testament, both by the Jews in general 
and by our Lord himself, is ranked under three 
divisions — the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Or, 
viewing the whole in the order of time, it consists of a 
series of histories, forming three-fifths of the whole ; of 
devotional and didactic books, belonging chiefly to the 
later part of the middle period of the history ; and of 
prophecies, growing out of its latest portions. The his- 
tories reach from Creation to the Return from Babylon. 
The Psalms and Proverbs, the chief books of the Hagio- 
grapha, belong to the reigns of David and Solomon. 
The written prophecies range from Isaiah to Malachi, 
or in time from Jonah to Nehemiah, through the latest 
portion of the history. 

Now the New Testament canon, as it now stands, 
exhibits the same threefold division, and in the same 
order of time. We have, first, an historical portion in 
the Gospels and Acts, reaching from the Incarnation, 
the beginning of the new creation of God, to the plant- 
ing of the gospel in Rome, the capital of the Gentile 
world. We have, secondly, a doctrinal and practical 
portion, in the twenty-one Apostolic Epistles, all of 
them parallel in time with the later half of the Book of 
Acts. We have, last of all, one book of prophecy, the 
Apocalypse, dating from a little beyond the close of the 
sacred history, but within the limits and on the extreme 
verge of the apostolic age. The proportion of the 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 241 

history to the other portions is also precisely the same 
in the two Testaments. This close analogy of structure 
is a further presumption, not only that the Gospel has 
its own inspired writings, but that these are represented 
faithfully, with no serious excess or defect, in the actual 
canon. 

IV. The promises of our Lord to his Apostles form a 
second branch of evidence, which serves, in a more 
direct way, to prove the inspiration and authority of 
nearly the whole of the New Testament. Out of the 
twenty-seven writings of which it is composed, all, 
with three important exceptions, have sufficient and full 
historical evidence of an Apostolic authorship. They 
are the writings of those divinely commissioned mes- 
sengers of the gospel, one of whom has described their 
credentials in these words : " Truly the signs of an 
apostle were wrought among you, in all patience, in signs 
and wonders, and mighty deeds." They were fully as- 
tested ambassadors of the words of Christ. And this 
evidence must confirm their written as well as their 
spoken messages, and even, if possible, in a higher mea- 
sure. For speech is sudden and momentary, and far 
more liable to the intrusion of error through haste or 
negligence. But a written message is deliberate ; it is 
open to revision, if the messenger were conscious of any 
negligence on his part, any intermission of the guidance 
of the Spirit of God, or any failure to abide in the light 
of his high commission. St. Barnabas, at least, and 
perhaps St. Paul, too, may have erred in feeling or judg- 
ment, when the contention was so sharp between them, 
and hasty words may have been spoken on either side ; 
and St. Peter erred in act, if not in speech also, at 
Antioch, when his brother apostle " withstood him to 
the face, because he was to be blamed," Gal. ii. 11. 
Two, if not three, of these chief apostles, were thus 

R 



242 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

liable to error in act, and probably in speech, even in 
practical questions, closely linked with the due fulfil- 
ment of their message. Even in their case the consent 
of two or three witnesses, or the absence of protest or 
correction from a brother apostle, seems required for the 
full assurance that, in special cases, their own infirmities 
had not mingled with their oral teaching, and impaired 
the practical fulfilment of their great commission. But 
in these very cases no trace of human weakness appears 
in their writings. St. Paul's allusions to Barnabas and 
Mark are as full and cordial as if no dissension had 
ever arisen ; and St. Peter stamps with a title of Divine 
authority those very letters of St. Paul, which contain 
the mention of his own error, and of the rebuke he had 
justly received. So that, while a general promise of 
Divine guidance would apply to all the oral teaching of 
the Apostles of Christ, it must be conceived, from the 
nature of the case, to be doubly emphatic and full, when 
applied to writings deliberately composed by them in 
the fulfilment of their solemn trust. 

Now the promises of our Lord to the Apostles are 
very full and strong, both in their first commission, and 
in its later renewal at the time of his own death and 
resurrection. First, he says to them in allusion to their 
testimony before rulers : " It shall be given you in that 
same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that 
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in 
you." It is true that the promise has direct reference 
to one kind of special emergency. But if this guidance 
of the Spirit was promised so strongly for a personal 
and temporary purpose, how much more must we con- 
ceive it to apply to an occasion still more important, 
when they were making provision for the lasting trans- 
mission of their message, and for the guidance and 
comfort of the whole Church in every succeeding age ! 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 243 

At the close of the same discourse we have the emphatic 
words : "He that receiveth you, receiveth me ; and he 
that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. He that 
receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall 
receive a prophet's reward." By the use of this title 
our Lord places their authority on a level with that of 
the earlier prophets. And since these writings are called 
" the oracles of God " and " words of the Holy Ghost," 
we may infer that the writings of the Apostles, in the 
fulfilment of their commission, would claim to be re- 
ceived with the same submission and reverence by 
all the true disciples of Christ. It would not be they 
who should speak their own words, but " the Spirit of 
their Father would speak in them." The words at the 
last supper repeat the same promise, and include in it 
the gift of prophetic illumination : " When he, the 
Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all 
truth; for he will not speak from himself, but what- 
soever he shall hear that will he speak, and he will 
shew you things to come." This solemn declaration, 
that the Spirit would teach the Apostles truth only, 
because he would not speak from himself, but by com- 
mission from the Father and the Son, would lose all its 
practical meaning, if the Spirit left them in their 
writings to " speak from themselves," and thus to mix 
an indefinite amount of human error with the messages 
of God. 

Y. The higher rank of the Apostles, compared with 
the Prophets, both of the Old and New Testaments, is 
a further evidence of the same truth. The writings of 
the Old Testament prophets, our Lord himself bears 
witness, were the words of the Holy Spirit speaking 
by their mouths. He affirms, also, that a greater pro- 
phet than the Baptist had not appeared, and still, he 
that was " less " or " inferior " in the kingdom of heaven 

r 2 



244 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

would be greater than he. The natural meaning seems 
to be, that even those prophets who held quite a secon- 
dary place under the Gospel were really higher than the 
Baptist in spiritual honour and dignity. So we read 
that " God hath set in the church, first apostles, se- 
condarily, prophets ; " and that Christ gave " some 
apostles, and some prophets," when he ascended on 
high, and received gifts for men. We find in the 
Book of Acts, Agabus, Judas, Silas, Simeon, Lucius, 
and probably Stephen, Philip, and others, companions 
of the Apostles, who belonged to this second class or 
order in the church of Christ. The higher authority 
and dignity of the Apostles, by whose hands alone the 
gifts of the Spirit were conveyed, is implied in the 
whole history. 

The conclusion from this comparison is simple and 
clear. The writings of the Prophets of the Old Testa- 
ment were under the guidance of the Spirit, and of 
Divine authority. Much more must we believe that, 
under the dispensation of the Spirit, the same guidance 
would be vouchsafed to the Apostles in their writings, 
since they rank still higher than the others in spiritual 
dignity and honour. If we receive, then, as historically 
true, the statements of our Lord with regard to the 
apostolic office, confirmed by the mutual testimony of 
the apostles themselves, then the inspiration of the New 
Testament, three books alone excepted, seems a clear 
and unavoidable inference. Accordingly, it seems that 
the early churches were guided mainly by this principle 
in the formation of the canon ; since the relation of 
Mark to Peter, and of St. Luke to St. Paul, gave their 
writings an indirect sanction, equivalent to immediate 
authorship by one of the apostles. 

YI. In the Historical Books the character of simple 
testimony is most' prominent, and a direct assertion by 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 245 

the writers of their own inspiration might seem out of 
place. The direct evidence chiefly applies, then, to the 
two other main portions of the New Testament, the 
Ejristles and the Apocalypse. The Apostles, in the 
Epistles, bear witness to their own inspiration, along 
with that of the Evangelists, and of the Old Testament ; 
while the Apocalypse, besides claiming Divine autho- 
rity for itself, puts a parting seal upon all the prophetic 
writings of the word of God. 

In the earliest epistle of St. Paul, the first to the 
Thessalonians, he makes this remarkable statement. 
" For this cause thank we God without ceasing, because, 
when ye received the word of God, which ye heard 
of us, ye received it, not as the word of men, but as it 
is in truth, the word of God, winch effectually worketh 
in you that believe." He enforces his commands to 
them by the declaration : " He that despiseth, despiseth 
not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his 
Holy Spirit." His written and spoken messages bear 
the same title, the word of God. " For this we say 
unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are 
alive and remain to the coming of the Lord, shall not 
prevent them which are asleep." He adds, at the close, 
the sanction of an oath to enforce the public reading 
of his message. " I charge you (with an oath) by the 
Lord, that this epistle be read unto all the holy 
brethren." The same tone of Divine authority runs 
through the second epistle to the same church ; and he 
adds a token at the close by which his genuine epistles 
might be discerned from every counterfeit that might 
falsely assume his name. " The salutation of Paul 
with mine own hand, which is the token in every 
epistle ; so I write." He joins together his oral teach- 
ing when among them, and his former letter, in the 
same rank and description, as " not the word of man, 






2-46 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

but the word of God." (1 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Thess. 
ii. 15.) 

In the churches of Galatia his authority had been 
questioned by the Judaizing teachers. He is thus led 
to affirm it strongly in the opening verse, and indeed 
through two whole chapters. The same tone of autho- 
rity continues throughout the letter to the close. 

In 1 Corinthians we have a distinct appeal to the 
teachers of that church, who ranked highest in their 
spiritual gifts. " If any man think himself to be a 
prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the 
things I write unto you are the commandment of the 
Lord." In the Second Epistle to the same church, he 
directly compares himself with Moses, as one who had 
received like authority, with a still higher message, 
styles himself an ambassador of Christ, reminds them, 
that Christ spoke by him, and that both in his letters 
and when present, he was entrusted with direct au- 
thority from the Lord for the edification of his people. 
In Eomans he speaks of " the grace given to him that 
he should be the minister of Christ to the Gentiles, 
ministering the gospel of God," and of the " mighty 
signs and wonders " with which, in the fulfilment of the 
same commission, he had preached the Gospel of Christ. 
Both at the opening and close of the letter he associates 
himself with the prophets and their writings, as now 
fulfilling the like office, and completing and unfolding 
their earlier messages, while no less than fifty quotations 
from Old Testament Scripture are embodied in this one 
epistle alone. In Ephesians he refers them to his own 
letter as a proof of his " knowledge of the mystery of 
Christ, which in other ages was not made known, as 
it was now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets 
by the Spirit." He speaks throughout as God's mes- 
senger, filled with the Spirit, and armed with complete 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 247 

authority to utter precepts, doctrines, and promises, in 
the name of the Lord. 

The same claim of full authority runs through the 
Pastoral Epistles. The glorious gospel of the blessed 
Jesus was committed to his trust. Hymeneus and 
Alexander were delivered unto Satan, that they might 
learn not to blaspheme. He was " ordained a preacher 
and an apostle (I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not) 
a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity." In the 
fulfilment of this office he gave commands to the men, to 
the women, to the bishops and deacons, and to Timothy 
himself. He predicts coming evils under an express 
voice from the Spirit (iv. 1). He gives in succession 
thirty distinct commands, referring to a large variety of 
ministerial duties and arrangements within the churches. 
He enforces these commands by an appeal to God and 
Christ, and the elect angels, and calls his own teaching 
" wholesome words, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and doctrine that is according to godliness." He re- 
peats a most solemn admonition to Timothy, " before 
God and the Lord Jesus Christ," to keep the command- 
ment in his epistle " without spot, unrebukeable, until 
the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." In the Second 
Epistle, the last which he wrote, he declares solemnly , 
in the prospect of death, that " he was appointed a 
preacher and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles ;'* 
and even associates his own teaching with the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures, as of equal authority. " Continue thou 
in the things thou hast learned and been assured of, 
knowing of whom thou hast learned them ; and that 
from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, 
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation; through 
faith which is in Christ Jesus." 

VII. These testimonies in St. Paul's Epistles are 
not confined to this part of the New Testament alone. 



248 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

They include three further statements, which apply 
directly to those books which have not apostles for their 
authors. 

1. First, in 1 Cor. viii. 18, 19, we have a direct allu- 
sion to St. Luke as the writer of the gospel we possess 
under his name, and already honoured by the use of it 
amongst the churches. This early view of the text, held 
by Origen, and embodied in the prayers of the church 
for many ages (coll. St. Luke's Day) has been disputed 
by several modern critics, from Grrotius onward, on very 
weak and insufficient grounds. A comparison with the 
Book of Acts proves clearly that St. Luke is the person 
designed. But the words " whose praise in the gospel 
is in all the churches," are used by way of definition, 
or as a distinctive title, equivalent to a personal name. 
There were, however, scores of prophets and teachers, 
whose names must have been widely known as oral 
teachers of the gospel. But St. Luke and St. Mark 
alone, amongst those inferior to the Apostles, were 
honoured to compose a written gospel; and of these 
St. Luke alone was well known to have accompanied 
St. Paul in his first entrance to Macedonia, from which 
country the letter was written. On this view the whole 
passage is clear and consistent, and the gospel of St. 
Luke receives here a direct sanction from the great 
Apostle of the Gentiles, as an honourable portion of the 
writings of the New Covenant. 

2. The second passage (1 Tim. v. 18.) in a later 
epistle completes and confirms the evidence derived 
from the first. " For the Scripture saith, Thou shalt 
not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, 
The labourer is worthy of his reward." The former 
clause is a quotation from Deuteronomy, or the Law of 
Moses; the second is written verbatim in St. Luke's 
gospel (x. 7). Both of these alike are called by the 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 249 

name of " Scripture," and appealed to as decisive 
authority. This is more remarkable in the second case, 
because they are the words of Christ himself. Yet they 
are referred to by the Apostle simply as Scripture, or 
a saying of the written gospel, and not in their dis- 
tinctive character as words spoken by the Lord himself. 
No fuller testimony could be given, in few words, to the 
inspired authority of the third gospel ; the very same 
which some might imagine, from the words of its own 
preface, to be more open than any other part of the New 
Testament to doubt and reasonable contradiction. The 
words are further noticeable, because they furnish a 
proof how early this gospel had acquired currency and 
full authority within the Church of Christ. 

3. The third passage (2 Tim. hi. 16) affirms directly 
the inspired authority of the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament, which had been familiar to the beloved 
Timothy from his childhood. But there is no warrant 
for confining their testimony to these alone. On the 
contrary the expression " all Scripture," following the 
more general phrase " the holy writings/' requires us 
to take these words in their widest sense. Now this 
was the last of St. Paul's epistles, and all the others were 
written earlier; and Timothy was present when most 
of them were composed, and shared in the superscription 
of more than one of them. Again, in the previous 
epistle to the same beloved companion, the gospel of 
St. Luke has been already quoted under this very name 
of Scripture ; and their internal relations are a strong 
proof that the two others, of St. Matthew and St. Mark, 
had been written still earlier. St. Paul had visited 
Jerusalem thirty years after the ascension, and the 
gospel of St. Matthew must therefore, without ques- 
tion, have been actually known to him. He had been 
still later at Csesarea, the Roman seaport of Judsea, 



250 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

for whose converts internal evidence would lead us to 
believe that the second gospel was written ; and he was 
writing from Rome, to which place tradition has often 
referred it, and hence it is almost beyond a doubt that 
it must also have been known to him. If St. Matthew's 
gospel claimed the title of Scripture, it is plain that 
St. Mark's, from its close resemblance of contents and 
style, must have done the same. So that these words 
of St. Paul, addressed to Timothy, would naturally, 
in the view of the latter, include these three gospels, 
and the earlier letters of St. Paul himself. They are 
thus a direct association of the greater part of the New 
Testament with the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, 
under the common title of " Scripture given by inspi- 
ration of God." 

The testimony includes, not only the three earlier 
Gospels, and the other Epistles of St. Paul, but the 
Book of Acts also. For St. Luke was now with the 
Apostle, as he had been during the voyage, and at the 
beginning of the first imprisonment. The book closes 
with the mention of that imprisonment, and of its two 
years' continuance, but says nothing of St. Paul's re- 
lease. St. Luke was still present with the Apostle 
when he wrote to Colosse (Col. iv. 14), but not when 
he wrote, still later, to Philippi, to which place he had 
probably returned (Phil. ii. 19, 20; iv. 3). It is thus 
highly probable, and almost certain, that the Book of 
Acts was written before the date of the Second Epistle 
to Timothy. But since it professes to be a continuation 
of the Gospel, which St. Paul has twice commended, and 
once referred to under the name of Scripture, it must 
evidently have been known to him, writing with 
St. Luke at his side, or in daily intercourse, and be 
therefore included in his declaration, that " all Scrip- 
ture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 251 

doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction 
in righteousness." The testimony, therefore, really 
applies to the whole of the New Testament, except 
the General Epistles, and the Gospel and Apocalypse of 
St. John. 

VIII. The two Epistles of St. Peter supply further 
testimonies of the same kind. First of all, the inspira- 
tion of the Old Testament prophets is clearly and fully 
affirmed. The Spirit of Christ, St. Peter tells us, " was 
in them, and testified beforehand of the sufferings of 
Christ, and the glories that should follow." Twelve or 
thirteen quotations from the Old Testament, or direct 
allusions to it as the " oracles of God," occur in the 
course of this short letter. But he proceeds at once 
to make a similar statement concerning his fellow 
apostles, that they had preached the gospel " with the 
Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," and that their 
gospel message was " the word of the Lord which en- 
dureth for ever." The mention, also, of St. Mark at 
the close, as the Apostle's son in the faith, if the second 
gospel were already written, for which we have strong 
internal evidence, would be an implied attestation of 
its character, and would agree with the tradition that 
it was written by St. Mark chiefly from materials with 
which St. Peter had supplied him. 

The Second Epistle contains three most important 
passages on the authority both of the Old and the New 
Testaments. First, the Apostle lays down a funda- 
mental law for the study of the Old Testament, based 
on the doctrine that all was Divine. " No prophecy 
of Scripture is of self-interpretation : for prophecy 
came not ever by the will of man ; but holy men of 
God spake, as they were moved (or borne along) by the 
Holy Ghost." Since all proceeded from the same 
Spirit, to regard them as independent human composi- 



252 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

tions, which some of late would propound for a first 
principle of true interpretation, is, according to St. 
Peter, a mischievous error. They must, on the con- 
trary, be compared with each other, as parts of a 
greater whole, if we would understand their true and 
full meaning. 

In the second passage, these inspired words of the 
Old Testament prophets, and the commandments of 
himself and his fellow apostles, are joined together, as 
equally binding on the conscience of Christians. The 
common object of both epistles was this — " that ye may 
be mindful of the words spoken before by the holy pro- 
phets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of 
our Lord and Saviour." The earlier message of the 
Prophets, and the later one of the Apostles, is thus 
equally sealed with full authority from Grod. 

The third passage is more specific, and refers directly 
to St. Paul's writings. " Account that the longsuffer- 
ing of our Lord is salvation ; even as our beloved 
brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto 
him, hath written unto you. As also in all his epistles, 
speaking in them of these things ; which they that are 
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other 
Scriptures, to their own destruction." 

There are here two distinct assertions, both of them 
highly important. First, there is a reference to one 
Epistle of St. Paul, written to these Christians, and in 
which the doctrine that the longsurTering of the Lord 
was salvation was set before them. Now as Galatia 
is mentioned in the opening of the first epistle, and 
St. Peter was the apostle of the circumcision, either 
the Epistle to the Galatians, or that to the Hebrews, 
must naturally be intended by this reference. The 
former contains, however, no such statement as that to 
which St. Peter alludes ; but the latter does in several 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 253 

places (Heb. ii. 1-3 ; iv. 1-3; iii. 14; vi. 9-12 ; x. 23- 
25, 35-39). The conclusion seems evident, that St. 
Peter ratines, as the work of St. Paul, the only one of 
his epistles which does not bear his name, and of 
which the authorship has been consequently disputed, 
even down to our own days. Secondly, the Apostle in- 
cludes all the epistles of St. Paul under the sacred name 
of Scripture — " which they that are unlearned and un- 
stable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to 
their own destruction." This testimony is the more 
striking and weighty, when we remember that one of 
these letters contains the only mention of St. Peter's 
fault at Antioch, and of the reproof which he received 
from his brother Apostle. There seems no good reason 
to doubt that the three first Gospels, no less than the 
Old Testament, are meant by the other Scriptures, with 
which the Epistles of St. Paul are here united ; as 
sharing the same title, and forming along with them 
one harmonious body of Divine truth, perfect in its own 
nature, though liable to be perverted by the ignorance 
and rashness of sinful men. 

The short epistle of St. Jude, besides six or seven 
allusions to leading facts of the Old Testament, and 
one supernatural revelation, and the revival of an 
ancient and long-forgotten prophecy of Enoch, the 
seventh from Adam, seems distinctly to ratify the 
Second Epistle of St. Peter, as this had confirmed and 
ratified all the epistles of St. Paul. " But, beloved, 
remember the words which were spoken before by the 
apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ : how that they told 
you there would be scoffers in the last time, who 
would walk after their own ungodly lusts." There 
seems here a distinct allusion to the words of St. Peter 
(2 Pet. hi. 3), with this difference, that the evil is 
predicted as near in one case, and described as present 



254 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

in the other. And this view is confirmed by the other 
resemblances (Jude 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4 ; Jude 7 ; 2 Pet. 
ii. 6-9 ; Jude 8 ; 2 Pet. ii. 10 ; Jude 9 ; 2 Pet. ii. 11). 
There is thus a series of testimonies, by which St. Paul 
bears witness to the canonical authority of St. Luke's 
writings and the two earlier G-ospels, St. Peter to all 
St. Paul's Epistles, and St. Jude to the Epistles of St. 
Peter in their turn. 

IX. The writings of St. John form confessedly the 
latest part of the New Testament, and they belong to 
all its three divisions. They complete the historical and 
epistolary, and constitute alone the prophetic portion, 
thus binding the whole into one complete system of 
Divinely revealed truth. 

Now, first, the Gospel, besides witnessing directly to 
its own apostolic authorship, as the work of that chosen 
and beloved disciple, who leaned on the bosom of the 
Lord, and thus claiming, in the highest degree, the faith 
and reverence of Christians, bears strong indirect testi- 
mony to the three earlier Evangelists. For the more 
closely it is examined, the clearer are the signs that it 
is, in its outline and conception, a supplemental nar- 
rative ; designed to record, not merely a distinct aspect 
of our Lord's character, but portions of his ministry, 
and especially his visits to Judaea, which had been 
purposely omitted in their works. These gospels, it 
is evident from history alone, must have been well 
known to St. John ; and a tacit reference to them, 
though an opposite statement has sometimes been para- 
doxically made, may be easily traced through the whole 
narrative. Thus i. 6, refers plainly to Matt, iii., 
Luke hi., and its abruptness is best explained by the 
fact that a fuller account of the Baptist's ministry 
was already on record. Again, i. 15 refers to Matt, 
iii. 11, and then expounds it by a brief and noble 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 255 

commentary. John i. 32, 33, has a like reference to 
Matt. iii. 16, 17. The mention of Andrew, Simon, two 
other brothers, namely, James and John, Philip and 
Nathaniel, implies that the list of the twelve apostles 
had been already put on record ; since the Twelve are 
afterwards mentioned in this gospel, but their names 
are not given, and no account appears of their ordina- 
tion to their office. In iii. 19, there seems a reference 
to the account in St. Mark of the false witnesses. In 
iii. 24, is a direct reference to Matt. iv. 12, and in iv. 
44, to Matt. xiii. 57 and Luke iv. 24. In xviii. 11, we 
have a similar reference to Matt. xxvi. 38-44 and 
Luke xxii. 42, and there are several others. The visits 
to Jerusalem, and the notice of the Passover about the 
time of the miracle of the loaves, dovetail remarkably 
with the other gospels, and serve at the same time to 
fix the chronology of our Lord's ministry. Thus the 
Fourth Gospel not only, by the mention of its author, 
attests its own inspiration, but confirms by an apostolic 
sanction those which were already in being. 

The Epistles of St. John supply no direct materials 
for the confirmation of the other New Testament Scrip- 
tures ; but two ideas pervade them in every part, that 
they are the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and the truth 
of God. 

The Apocalypse, as it forms the latest portion of the 
New Testament, and its only book of prophecy, is pecu- 
liarly full both in the statement of its own inspiration, 
and in its testimony to all previous Scripture. It opens 
with its high title — "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, 
which God gave unto him, to shew his servants the 
things which must shortly come to pass." It pro- 
nounces a blessing on those who read and hear " the 
words of this prophecy." The beloved St. John names 
himself as the messenger of Christ. He says that he 



256 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

" was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," and that he 
wrote by the express command of the risen Saviour. 
" I heard behind me a voice, as of a trumpet, saying, 
What thou seest, write in a book." There was thus the 
same voice of authority in its publication, as when the 
Ten Commandments, the earliest written message of God, 
were proclaimed with " the voice of a trumpet exceeding 
loud," from the top of Sinai. Seven commands to write 
attend the seven epistles to the churches, besides the 
■double command already given. What is not to be 
written is enjoined (x. 4), as well as what is to be 
written (xiv. 13). Twice at the close the seal is put 
upon the message, " Write, for these are the true sayings 
of God." " Write, for these words are true and faith- 
ful." Lastly, the truth of this message is joined with a 
Divine title, which is like a seal on the authority of all 
the earlier Scriptures. " These sayings are faithful and 
true, and the Lord God of the holy prophets hath sent 
his angel to show unto his servants the things which 
must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly : blessed 
is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of 
this book." At the very close a double curse is pro- 
nounced on those who shall add to, or take away from 
" the words of the book of this prophecy." The Pen- 
tateuch and the Apocalypse, in this respect, stand 
alone. As the earliest and the latest portion of 
written revelation, they alike contain a solemn caution 
against adding to them or taking away; and stronger 
internal declarations, than in any other Scriptures, of 
their own Divine authority. Nine or ten times the 
writing of the Law by Moses is affirmed in Deutero- 
nomy ; and twelve times, or upwards, the Apocalypse 
is declared to be written by the command of Christ, and 
to consist, throughout, of the true sayings of God. 
Thus the inspiration and authority of the New Testa- 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 257 

nient, though not capable of the direct evidence given 
to the earlier Scriptures by the lips of our Lord himself 
upon earth, has other evidence, from plain analogy with 
the Old Testament, from the character of the Gospel 
dispensation, from the revealed rank of the Apostles 
as even higher than the Prophets, from the direct aver- 
ments of St. Paul concerning his own Epistles, and his 
indirect testimony to St. Luke's writings and the earlier 
Gospels, from the cumulative testimonies of St. Peter 
and St. Jude, from the statements of the Fourth Gospel, 
and the full and emphatic declarations of the Apocalypse, 
like a keystone to the whole — which leaves those 
Christians without excuse who treat it as mingled and 
imperfect utterances of fallible men, and refuse to own 
that it is, in reality, " the true sayings of God," the last 
and highest portion of that word which will assuredly 
judge them at the last day. 



258 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OX THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 

The Bible has been received by trie Church of Christ 
from the first ages, as the word of God, the great foun- 
tain of religious truth. It has thus been the object of 
wider, deeper, more earnest, and more assiduous medi- 
tation and study, than any other book whatever, and 
even more than all other books combined. Thousands 
on thousands of works have been written to unfold 
its truths, and apply them to the hearts of men. The 
amount of Biblical literature, during the three centuries 
since the Reformation, is prodigious. The labour of 
a lifetime would not suffice for a bare perusal, much 
less for a careful study, of all its manifold varieties, in 
criticism, history, doctrine, ethics, and practical appli- 
cations to the religious life. It has been translated, also, 
into near two hundred languages, and circulated in 
more than fifty millions of copies ; and hence has arisen 
a still further amount of critical labour and learned 
industry, altogether unique in the history of the world. 
Now this immense accumulation of Biblical literature, 
although its source is the reverence the Bible has re- 
ceived for so many ages from the whole Christian 
world, may supply a sceptical spirit with large materials 
for casting doubt and suspicion on the Divine message. 
For this end it is only needful to view it from without, 
instead of within; and to trace the multiplied diver- 



:0N THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 259 

gence and contradiction at the circumference of this 
mighty world of thought, instead of discerning its 
central unity, and its growing fulness from age to age. 
Man touches nothing which he does not defile. The 
gift of revelation to a fallen world implies that men are 
prone to go astray, and lose themselves in thick mists 
of religious error. The world was full of Gentile 
idolatry when the Gospel appeared. Its presence 
brought light into this thick darkness ; but it did not 
seal up the sources of delusion in the human heart. 
The course of Divine truth, in every age, has been a 
constant warfare, and not a triumphal progress ; and its 
fullest victories are still to come. The interpretation 
of the Bible, then, has had a chequered course. Much 
precious truth has been unfolded ; but no slight amount 
of human error, in various and divergent forms, has 
mingled with these expositions. The stream, however 
pure the fountain, has become turbid in its progress, and 
stained by the soil from the river bed in which it had 
to flow. It is easy to dwell on this human side of the 
literature of the Bible, till the real excellency of the 
word of God is quite obscured from our view. The 
trifling of mere verbal critics and grammarians, the 
strifes of interpreters, the dreams of mystics, the 
subtleties of schoolmen, the confusing influence of the 
mental parallax in ten thousand minds of different 
ages, countries, and modes of thought, may produce 
a feeling of almost hopeless perplexity. We may then 
be urged to cast the whole aside, as mere heaps of 
misdirected and useless learning ; and to commence the 
study anew on a simpler principle, which sees nothing 
more, in these inspired oracles of God, than curious 
and interesting specimens of religious feeling, and 
valuable productions of human genius, in the early 
youth or earlier infancy of mankind. 

s 2 



260 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

The time is not distant, when a loud warning* was 
raised within the English church against the dangers of 
private judgment, and the maxim of Yincentius on 
Catholic consent was praised as the guardian angel of 
Christian orthodoxy. No private Christian was reckoned 
able to interpret, with safety, even the simplest messages 
of the Bible, unless sustained and protected by a catena 
of authorities, and some approach to " an unanimous 
consent of the fathers." The pendulum seems now to 
have swung violently the other way. The latest voice 
from the same cloisters assures the youthful and in- 
genuous student that all the past labours of Christian 
divines are a hindrance, and not a help, to the attain- 
ment of Scriptural knowledge ; that they are stumbling 
blocks in his path, and not way-marks, to guide his 
steps in the pathway of Divine truth. He has only to 
renounce them, and study the Bible for himself like 
any other book, and he will enter more fully into its 
meaning than all the controversial writers of former 
ages put together. 

Now there can be no doubt that much evil has arisen 
from reading the Bible with preconceived opinions, 
and through the coloured spectacles of human systems. 
Christians have thus often robbed their souls of the 
rich diversity of doctrine, precept, example, and all 
spiritual wisdom, which is found in the unforced and 
genuine teaching of the word of Grod. But there may 
be an equal danger on the opposite side. To despise 
human aids is no less dangerous than to exaggerate 
their value. If young students, with unfurnished minds 
and unprepared hearts, rush to the study of the Bible, 
as to that of Sophocles or Caesar, in the conviction 
that by their solitary research, and dealing with it as 
the mere work of L human authors, they will outstrip at 
once all the divines of past ages, they will soon illus- 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 261 

trate one of its most elementary truths, that " pride 
goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a 
faH." 

The maxim lately propounded as the master key of 
theology, to interpret the Bible like any other book, 
is one of those half truths, which have often the mis- 
chievous effect of entire falsehood. For the Bible is 
like other books, and it is unlike them. It resembles 
them in being the work of various human authors, 
whose circumstances, tastes, and habits of thought and 
language, tinge and colour each separate portion. But 
it differs from them, because it is the word of the Holy 
Ghost, and a Divine unity of supernatural truth and 
wisdom animates the whole, and makes it instinct 
throughout with the mind of that Spirit, who " searcheth 
all things, yea, even the deep things of God." To insist 
on the former truth, and to deny the second, which is 
higher and more weighty, is not to simplify, but to 
falsify its interpretation. Unbelief is the starting point 
of such a mode of study, and therefore unbelief is its 
natural and necessary consummation. 

There are four main principles which form the key 
to the right study of the Scriptures. Two of these 
depend on the character of the Bible, and two others on 
the circumstances of those to whom it is given. We 
must study it intelligently and naturally, as composed 
of works written by human authors, and moulded, in 
each part, by the circumstances which occasioned its 
composition. We must study it reverently, as the in- 
spired word of God, endued with a fuller meaning 
and a deeper unity of truth and wisdom than the sepa- 
rate writers could supply. In the words of St. Paul, 
we must receive it " not as the word of man, but as 
the word of God, which effectually worketh in those 
who believe." We must read it, with a direct, honest 



262 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



exercise of our own judgment on its contents, joined with 
prayer for the promised teaching of the Spirit. But 
that teaching is nowhere promised to mere selfwill and 
presumption. We must read it, therefore, in the diligent 
use of all those helps which the providence of God may 
put within our reach, through the labours of the servants 
of Christ, the written or spoken ministry of the word of 
God. It is mainly by these " joints and bands " that the 
mystical body of Christ is nourished with Divine truth, 
as its heavenly food, and " being knit together, increaseth 
with the increase of God." Lastly, the recognition of 
the Bible as Divine, and full of deeper meaning than 
the earlier writers of it attained to know, is far from 
leading, as some have untruly affirmed, to endless 
doubt and uncertainty. On the contrary, it is the only 
way by which the soul can ever gain a footing on the 
solid rock of eternal truth. Even if we could revive, 
in all their first freshness and youth, which is im- 
possible, the thoughts and feelings of certain good but 
imperfect and ignorant Jewish patriots, who lived long 
ago, this would still leave us as far as ever from any 
sure knowledge of the truth of God. It is only when 
we read the Bible as " the lively oracles of God " and 
the " words of the Holy Ghost," and thus discern the 
outlines of redemption by an incarnate and atoning 
Saviour reaching through all its messages from Genesis 
to Eevelation, from Paradise to the Last Judgment, 
that our feet are truly planted upon firm ground. _ We 
know what, and we know also in Whom we believe; 
and instead of being carried to and fro with every wind 
of false doctrine, we grow up, with steady and continual 
progress, into the full unity of the faith, and of the 
knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. 

I. The first maxim of sound interpretation is to read 
and study the Bible in the truth of its human character. 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 2G3 

It is a book composed of many books, each having its 
own distinct author, and wearing the marks of its human 
authorship in every page. This maxim, in one of the 
recent Essays, is a nucleus of truth, around which have 
crystallized many and dangerous errors. But the truth 
itself is not the less important, and needful for the 
Christian student to bear in mind. 

There is a mechanical view of Bible inspiration, 
which shuts out, and practically denies, the human 
element in its composition. It reduces the whole pro- 
cess, so mysterious, and possibly so various in its nature, 
by which the Spirit of God overruled and guided the 
sacred penmen, to one dull monotony of mere verbal 
dictation. In its rigour this has seldom been held by 
theological writers, at least of late years ; but whenever 
stress is laid simply on the result of the inspiration in 
writing, irrespective of the thoughts and feelings of the 
sacred writers, there is a close approach to this view. 
An element, which is made unimportant, and quite 
superfluous, is in reality set aside. But in popular 
Christianity, this is the view entertained, wherever 
traditional orthodoxy and spiritual idleness make a 
league together. To realize the human features of the 
books of Scripture, and through them to reach the full 
sense of its Divine unity, requires patient diligence and 
persevering thought. It is much easier and simpler 
to receive all simply as the word of God, and then to 
expound it by our own preconceived tastes, feelings, 
and habits of thought ; without caring to inquire into 
its original meaning, or to realize those aspects of it, 
which carry us out of ourselves, and place us amidst the 
wonders of Providence in distant ages. 

The simple truth is, that in reading the Bible we 
cannot get rid of a human element. We may fail to 
apprehend those which properly belong to it from the 



264: THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

character and circumstances of the sacred writers them- 
selves ; but we are sure, in this case, to replace them 
with others, borrowed from our own circumstances and 
mental associations. To travel out of ourselves, and to 
rise above ourselves, are the first steps in attaining the 
mind of God. We cannot know God in his absolute 
Being, but only as revealed, and revealed in his word. 
Even in his word, we cannot apprehend the Divine 
elements, except through the human. We must pass 
out of ourselves, first of all, into sympathy with the 
" holy men of God," by whom the Scriptures were 
written ; and, through communion with their testimonies, 
thoughts, and feelings, must rise into fellowship with 
that Spirit by whom they spoke, and that Lord to 
whom they all bear witness. All systematic theology, 
all conventional phraseology, and all limited and local 
forms of Christian experience, tend to contract an 
element of unreality in their use of Scripture, which 
can only be remedied by a perpetual return to the living 
fountains. The student, who would retain the sim- 
plicity of faith, must so far obey the advice to " transfer 
himself to another age, imagine that he is a disciple of 
Christ or of Paul, and disengage himself from all that 
follows." He must have no theological " theory of in- 
terpretation, but a few rules guarding against common 
errors." His object must be "to read the Scripture 
with a real and not merely a conventional interest ; to 
open his eyes, and see and imagine things as they 
truly were." For just as it was through the human 
actions of our Lord, his hunger and thirst, his fasting 
in the wilderness, his sleep on the pillow, his tears over 
Jerusalem, that his Divine glory slowly revealed itself 
to his first disciples, till they saw it to be " the glory 
of the Only Begotten of the Father ;" so it is through 
a more vivid sense of the human elements of the Bible, 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 265 

that we rise most safely and surely to the sense of its 
Divine unity, its wondrous fertility of goodness, wisdom, 
and love. "When we lose sight of these elements, it 
runs the risk of being mechanized and degraded into 
a mere school-book, or a string of texts without order 
or cohesion. It is only as they are restored and come 
fully into view, that we realize it as one vast scheme of 
revelation, overarching, like the bow of heaven, all the 
six thousand years of the history of the world. 1 

II. The Bible, then, must be read and studied, first 
of all, as a collection of authentic human writings, 
through fifteen centuries, from Moses to the beloved 
St. John. This will add new life and freshness to the 
fulfilment of the Christian duties of Scripture reading 
and meditation. 

But must we read it as a merely human work? 
Must we forget or deny, because it had various human 
writers, that the whole is due to one higher Author, 
the revealing Spirit of (rod ? This is the great question 
really at issue between the Christian Church in all 
ages, and a limited number of modern critics, who 
aspire to represent the progress, and really herald 
the predicted unbelief, of these last days. Must we, 
with " Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," condemn the 
practice of bringing together texts, " a whole millen- 
nium apart," in illustration of doctrinal or practical 
lessons; though justified by the clear example of St. 
Paul, and of our Lord himself ? Or shall we not allow 
that, amidst the human diversity, a Divine unity reigns 
in these sacred Scriptures ; because every part is the 
word of that Grod, to whom all his works are known 
from the beginning, and with whom a thousand years 
are as one day ? This, in brief, is the main question at 

1 Note D. The Human Element in Scripture. 



266. THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

issue, and one to which it becomes every Christian to 
give a clear and distinct reply. 

In the first place, the principle which an unbeliev- 
ing criticism would cast aside is laid down in the 
New Testament itself, as the first and. most essential 
law of Bible interpretation. St. Peter, in that Second 
Epistle, which would-be critics reject as spurious, but 
one sentence of which far outweighs, in solid worth, 
all their disquisitions, propounds this doctrine in the 
plainest and most emphatic terms. " Knowing this first, 
that no prophecy of Scripture is of self-interpretation ; 
for prophecy came not at any time by the will of man, 
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." 

The reasoning here is simple and easy to under- 
stand. The Ltla emXvai?, or " private interpretation," 
denotes the construction of each separate portion of 
Scripture by itself alone, as if it formed a complete 
whole, proceeding from some human author. This is a 
false view of its nature. It is one out of many messages 
of the Holy Ghost. It is one component in a great 
series of utterances of Divine truth, from Adam and 
Enoch down to the last of the Apostles. To attain its 
full meaning and purpose, therefore, it is absolutely 
needful to bear in mind its true character. Read it 
merely as an independent voice of man, and you will 
fail to interpret it aright. Eead it as one out of many 
messages, given by the same Holy Spirit, though under 
special circumstances, and with features due to the 
character of the messenger he has chosen, and you have 
a key to its true and just interpretation. We must, 
therefore, exactly reverse the false maxim which has 
been lately propounded, and affirm, on the authority of 
the inspired Apostle, that " illustration of one part 
of Scripture by another must not be confined to writings 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OP SCRIPTURE. 267 

of the same age and the same authors, far less to the 
same author in the same period of his life." It is not 
true, in spiritual any more than in natural astronomy, 
that the planets move in orbits wholly independent, 
that they exercise no mutual influence, and have no 
common law of relation to that central Sun of righteous- 
ness on whom they absolutely depend. 

But this great truth, which rests firmly on the au- 
thority of the inspired Apostle, is confirmed still more 
fully by the sayings of our Lord himself, and the 
constant practice of all the writers of the New Tes- 
tament. We have been told that " the new truth in- 
troduced into the Old Testament, rather than the old 
truth found there, was the conversion and salvation 
of the world." 1 This is a corollary which follows un- 
avoidably from a purely human view, in which we 
interpret the Scripture " like any other book ;" that 
is, with a stedfast refusal to own in it the presence 
of a Divine element, or the real voice of the Spirit of 
Grod. But this view, however gentle the phrase in 
which it may be conveyed, really gives the lie direct 
to our Lord and his Apostles. Their constant, em- 
phatic testimony is, not that they were putting new 
truths into the Old Testament, or palming on it a new 
sense foreign from its genuine significance ; but that 
they simply unfolded its true meaning and reference, 
when the Spirit of Christ in the prophets " testified 
beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories 
that should follow." Those who reject this constant 
doctrine of our Lord, and of the whole New Tes- 
tament, may be learned and ingenious speculators in 
Christian literature ; but it is hard to see in what 
sense they can be disciples of Christ, while they con- 
tradict the Lord of glory in one main and conspicuous 

1 Essay vii, p. 406. 



268 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

part of his teaching, on which his claim to submis- 
sion and reverence is made, by his own lips, to depend. 
" Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me ; 
for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, 
how shall ye believe my words ?" " fools and slow 
of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! 
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things, and 
to enter into glory ? And beginning at Moses and all 
the prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scrip- 
tures the things concerning himself." He, whose name 
is the Truth, did not, in the hour of his resurrection, 
enact the part of a spiritual juggler, and foist a reference 
to himself into texts, of which the true meaning was 
wholly different ; in order, by this pious lie of repre- 
senting the " new truth introduced " as " the old truth 
of the New Testament," to effect the conversion and 
salvation of the world. The supposition is little 
short of a monstrous blasphemy. No, he rebuked the 
blindness of his disciples ; who, like many modern 
critics, could not see, and were too foolish to believe, 
what those Scriptures really contained. He opened 
their understanding, to see the landscape which was 
there already, but which the scales of their spiritual 
ignorance had previously concealed from their view. 
Then all was plain to their opened eyes and quickened 
hearts; and through reproach, affliction, and martyr- 
dom, they bore witness to Christ in the midst of 
malicious adversaries, — " saying none other things than 
those which the Prophets and Moses did say should 
come ; that Christ should suffer, and that he should 
be the first that should rise from the dead, and should 
show light unto the people and to the Gentiles." 
(Acts xxvi. 22, 23.) 

The same great truth, which is confirmed by the 
uniform consent of all the writers of the New Testa- 



OX THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTUEE. 269 

ment, and by the plainest sayings of our Lord himself, 
has also a negative proof in the confusion and perplexity 
of those critics, who venture to contradict it, and cast 
it aside. If the Old Testament be in truth the word 
of God, it must be clear that no consistent explanation 
of it can be given on the contrary hypothesis, that it is 
a series of purely human writings. Our Lord was a 
Jewish peasant ; but whoever strove to account for his 
words and works, on the hypothesis that he was a 
Jewish peasant only, must have plunged himself at 
every step into contradiction and absurdity. Even the 
officers of the Pharisees were forced to own, " Never 
man spoke like this man ;" and unbelievers, under the 
momentary impression of his miracles, were led to con- 
fess — " This is of a truth that Prophet that should come 
into the world." 

Now the case is precisely similar with the Scriptures 
of the Old Testament. A learned school of naturalist 
critics have laboured to expound and analyse them 
on the negative view of their character. And what is 
the result of labours, conducted on such principles ? 
The authenticity and integrity of the Books of Moses, 
of the Prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel, of Joshua and 
Judges, in short, of all the main portions of the Canon, 
in spite of the full external evidence in their favour, 
melt away and disappear. The facts, as they stand, will 
not agree with the hypothesis, and must be tortured and 
transformed, in order to obtain some decent show of 
consistency. That holy and perfect Law, honoured both 
by our Lord and his apostles, and all the prophets, as 
the gift of God by his servant Moses, and placed from 
the hour of its completion beside the ark of the cove- 
nant in the holy of holies, has to be dissolved into a 
cento of fragments, a patchwork of imaginary documents, 
which the names of the Most High God are profaned in 



270 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

order to describe, due to some unknown and obscure 
compilers in the time of the kings. The very first 
chapter of Genesis must be degraded into a piece of un- 
scrupulous guess-work by some " Hebrew Descartes or 
Newton," who affirmed in the dark what he had no 
means of knowing, because he had not been trained in 
the modesty of modern science ! The blessing of Jacob 
on his sons is turned, from a sacred prophecy, into a | 
legendary fiction of the time of Samson — in other words, 
into a manifest lie. The blessing of Moses, in like 
manner, is transferred to some mendacious author in the 
times of David or Solomon. The Book of Judges is 
turned from plain history into a new and singular Epos, 
of which the only poetical feature consists in the substi- 
tution of false dates for true ones. One half of Isaiah's 
prophecies are wrested from the author to whom all 
antiquity, and the words of our Lord and his Apostles 
assign them, and are referred to Baruch or some apocry- 
phal hand, to make the task rather less unmanageable 
of stripping them of all their prophetic character. In 
the same way the writings of the beloved Daniel, re- 
ferred to by our Lord as the words of " Daniel the pro- 
phet," and appropriated and applied to Himself in the 
most solemn act of his public testimony before the high 
priest, are turned into a base imposture of the time of the 
Maccabees ; that prophecies plainly Divine, if genuine, 
may be expounded as meagre summaries of past history, 
which have been impiously disguised by a preface of 
angelic visions, in order to make the imposture more 
complete. 

Now these results, however hateful and abominable 
in the eyes of the devout Christian, are only the 
natural fruits of that negative criticism, which labours 
to expound the Old Testament as a series of merely 
human writings. The Divine element in them, 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 271 

wherever it comes plainly to light, must then be got 
rid of by some critical violence or other. And this 
violence reveals itself by endless inconsistency and 
vacillation. The false witnesses against the authority 
and divinity of the written word frame successively 
plausible hypotheses, in which charges of untruth are 
expressed or implied, " but neither so doth their witness 
agree together." Mythicism and naturalism, supple- 
mentary hypotheses, crystallization hypotheses, docu- 
mentary hypotheses, a two-fold, a three-fold, a four-fold, 
a five-fold authorship, have all been applied to the Pen- 
tateuch alone, but still the witness does not, and will 
not agree. Many picklocks have been tried in turn, but 
the wards are obstinate. Those who refuse to see in 
the word of Grod a Divine authorship, are compelled to 
set aside Moses, Isaiah, and Daniel ; but they cannot tell 
how to replace them, or frame any consistent view of 
the human authorship, which will enable them to ex- 
punge the miracles and prophecies, and thus to reduce 
the whole to the level of common history. 

Let us take one or two examples, in detail, of the 
general truth. The Bible begins with a professed nar- 
rative of the creation of the world, and the first forma- 
tion of man on the sixth day. Interpret like any other 
book, and one of two conclusions must follow. We 
have here either an open imposture, or a supernatural 
revelation. A " Hebrew Descartes or Newton," who, 
in total ignorance, should guess for himself what might 
have happened before the first man was in being, and 
then publish it as part of a Divine message, would simply 
prove himself a profane and dishonest liar. Thus, at 
the outset, every middle hypothesis is swept away. 
We must either interpret the Bible by moral rules, un- 
like those applied to any other work, or choose at once 
between branding it as a vile imposition, and accepting 



272 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

it as Divine. But when once accepted as a Divine 
message, the attempt, by a series of critical artifices, to 
weed out of it all supernatural elements, is a course no 
less irrational and senseless than profane. 

Let us take one other instance — the three verses in 
Genesis, Psalms, and Hebrews, which refer to Mel- 
chizedec. On the humanist view, the first of these was 
a mere accident in the contents of some " Elohistic 
document," an early " monogram " on Chedarlaomer, 
which happened to get inserted by the last compiler of 
the Pentateuch. The verse in Psa. ex. 4, which in- 
troduces the name of Melchizedec in an oath ascribed 
to Jehovah, must have been a mere poetical fiction 
of David or some unknown writer, who ventured to 
take the name of God in vain, and ascribe to him a 
solemn oath of which the writer knew nothing. The 
whole chapter, again, in Hebrews, must be a piece of 
laborious trifling, in which the weightiest conclusions 
are based on the premise of an accidental omission 
of names in Genesis, and a mere fiction of the Psalmist ; 
while the forms of reasoning are abused to give an 
appearance of argument, where there is nothing more 
than the wildest caprice of fanciful interpretation. 
And still the upshot of this accident in Genesis, this 
profane fiction in the Psalmist, and this capricious folly 
in the Apostle, is to bring out one of the noblest 
utterances of Christian doctrine, and one of the most 
cheering messages of comfort and promise to the weary 
heart. " Wherefore he is able to save them to the 
uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever 
liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high 
priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, 
separate from sinners, and made higher than the 

heavens For the law maketh men high priests 

which have infirmity ; but the word of that oath, which 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 273 

was since the law, maketh the Son who is perfected for 
evermore." Is such an hypothesis credible ? Can we 
believe that such glorious issues of truth and holiness, 
such beautiful and lovely forms of comfort, hope, and 
promise, are the results of chance and caprice, of profane 
fiction, and childish folly ? 

Now let us reverse the picture, and contemplate the 
same passages in their true light. " All Scripture " 
from Genesis to Revelation, " is given by inspiration of 
God." In every part " holy men of God spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost." To this revealing 
Spirit the remotely past and the remotely future are 
equally open, for " known unto God are all his works 
from the beginning," and " the Spirit searcheth all 
things, yea, even the deep things of God." It was the 
Holy Spirit, who, more than three thousand years ago, 
guided Moses, in his inspired narrative, to make this 
brief mention of Melchizedec and his blessing on 
Abraham, to omit purposely all mention of his father, 
mother, or genealogy; and to introduce him suddenly 
into the scene as a mysterious person' a priest of 
the Most High God, standing above the father of the 
faithful in dignity and honour, aloof and alone. It was 
the Spirit, nearly three thousand years ago, who taught 
David to give the title of Lord to his own son, as a 
pledge of Messiah's Divine glory ; and revealed to him 
that oath of God concerning this unborn son of David, 
which could never else have been known — " The Lord 
sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever 
after the order of Melchizedec." It was the same Holy 
Spirit, who, eighteen hundred years ago, taught the 
Apostle to expound to the church the significance of 
the original history, two thousand years after it had 
occurred, in which the silence concerning Melchizedec s 
parentage and genealogy rendered him a type of the 



274 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

heavenly priesthood of the risen Son of God ; to unfold 
the meaning of the oath in the Psalm, as the prophecy of 
a higher priesthood than that of Aaron, which the true 
Messiah would fulfil, and over which mortality had no 
power ; and, last of all, to apply the whole in a glorious 
message of comfort to the Church of Christ. And it is 
the same Spirit who now, in these our own days, has 
caused these his own words, by his wonderful Pro- 
vidence, to be diffused in millions of copies, and in 
countless languages, throughout the tribes of the earth ; 
and then applies them, by his secret power and grace, 
to quicken the faith, and cheer the hearts, of millions of 
believers, by the vision of their Great High Priest, who 
intercedes for them perpetually before the throne in 
heaven. 

III. Another question must now be answered. Pri- 
vate judgment, there can be no doubt, must be exercised, 
with prayer and humility, by every real student of 
the word of God. A mere blind reception of the dicta 
of human authority, without thought or personal in- 
quiry, is a superstitious counterfeit, and widely different 
from real Christian faith. But is it the wisest and 
safest course, in the acquirement of true Scriptural 
knowledge, for every novice to start anew ? Ought 
he to approach the Bible, like Sophocles or Plato, as a 
human work, to be mastered by " the plain meaning of 
words and their context alone," and to discard all the 
Christian writings of the last eighteen hundred years, 
and all the criticism and theology to which they have 
given birth, as a mere incubus and troublesome burden, 
which must be wholly cast aside, in order to gain 
insight into the true meaning ? Such a view involves a 
strange inversion of the lessons of humility and true 
wisdom. 

The contempt for human helps in the knowledge of 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 275 

Scripture may assume two opposite forms, one of intel- 
lectual pride, and the other of fanatical presumption. It 
is hard to say which is the more dangerous. The former 
neglects or denies the promise of the Spirit, and pro- 
fesses to rely on human industry alone. The latter 
abuses the promise of the Holy Ghost, in order to justify 
a neglect of helps which he himself has graciously pro- 
vided for the people of Christ, and to disguise a rash 
confidence in the hasty and unripe conclusions of one's 
own private understanding. 

The Bible is a rich treasury of Divine truth. But 
the nature and purpose of this record, as designed for 
the instruction of the Church in every age, requires the 
truth to be given in its most condensed form. It is 
perfect for the object for which it was really given, but 
not for other objects for which distinct and collateral 
provision was also made. One of the chief of these 
is the expansion of the truth contained in the Scriptures, 
and its application to the varying circumstances and 
characters of individuals, and to the multiplied changes 
and experience of the whole Church of Christ. For 
this end a living ministry was expressly ordained, both 
under the Law and the Gospel, and its importance for 
the instruction and guidance of believers is commended 
in the strongest terms. A nursery full of seeds does 
not exclude, but requires, the labour and care of many 
gardeners, if its own purpose is to be really fulfilled, and 
countless landscapes are to be adorned with the fruits of 
autumn and the flowers of spring. The Bible is such a 
spiritual nursery; and the answer of the Ethiopian 
eunuch to Philip's inquiry, — " How can I understand, 
except some man shall guide me " — expresses the usual 
law of Grod's Providence in the use of human agents 
and ministers, to convey the clear knowledge of its 
truths to their fellowmen. 

t 2 • 



276 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

It would be most unwise, it is true, for the youthful 
student to begin his course by collecting a cumbrous 
apparatus of human authors, instead of coming directly 
and simply to the words of Scripture, with the honest 
desire to learn from them their true meaning. Such 
a plan would hedge up his way with thorns, and render 
very difficult any real access to the truth of God. But 
it is hardly less unwise to imagine that he will advance 
most safely and rapidly by rejecting all the labours of 
critics and theologians, and relying on his own skill 
and industry alone. Theology is the first and noblest 
of the sciences. The Bible supplies the materials, in 
rich variety, by which alone that science can be at- 
tained. But it needs much patient thought, much 
meditation on Divine things, the comparison of spiritual 
things with spiritual in prayer and humility, in order 
to " wax ripe and strong " in the knowledge of Christ, 
and to pass out of spiritual infancy into the firm in- 
telligence of full manhood, or the ripened wisdom of 
the " fathers in Christ." Where, in the providence of 
God, other helps are denied, it may be hard to assign 
a limit to the Christian light and wisdom, which may 
be attained by solitary meditation on the Scriptures 
alone. But such circumstances, and such a Baptist- 
like calling, are exceptional and rare. In most cases it 
is either laziness or pride, which leads a young Chris- 
tian to dispense with the aid derivable from human 
teachers and writings, and either heresy or great 
spiritual barrenness is the only result which can be 
expected to follow. Direct meditation on the word of 
God ought ever to take precedence of the study even 
of the best human critics or commentators. Direct 
comparison of truth with truth, and Scripture with 
Scripture, far more than a perusal of the soundest 
system of divinity, must be the basis of a living and 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 277 

real theology. But contempt for the aid of theological 
writings is always an unhealthy sign, whether it arises 
from the mere self-conceit of intellectual pride, or dis- 
guises itself under a veil of spiritual phrases, and a 
claim to a simple dependence on the promised guidance 
of the Spirit of God. It is not the lazy or the self-con- 
ceited, but the humble and diligent, to whom the pro- 
mise belongs of being guided by teaching of that blessed 
Spirit into all truth. 

IV. The question with regard to the single and 
double or triple sense of Scripture, its types and sym- 
bolisms, and real or supposed hidden meanings, is far 
too wide to enter upon at the close of this chapter. 
But a few remarks seem required, on that charge of total 
uncertainty, which has been brought against the whole 
mass of received biblical interpretation. " The book," 
it is asserted, " in which we believe all religious truth 
to be contained, is the most uncertain of all books, 
because interpreted by arbitrary and uncertain methods." 

Is this a true and just accusation ? The heart and 
conscience of every devout and intelligent Christian 
will answer, at once, that it is a monstrous inversion of 
the truth. No doubt if we collect in one mass all that 
has been written on the Bible, in criticism, commentary, 
and controversy, for eighteen hundred years, and seek 
to winnow out all the chaff of error, ignorance, heresy, 
and folly, we may be almost choked and stifled by its 
vast amount. But this is due to the immense variety 
of the Biblical literature, reaching through so many 
ages and countries of the world, and encountering a 
thousand tendencies to delusion and error in the hearts 
of men. If we take, on the one hand, those views of 
Christian doctrine and duty which tens of thousands of 
humble and earnest disciples are receiving daily from 
their study of the word of Grod, though tinged and 



278 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

coloured, here and there, by the influences of education, 
personal feeling, and local or ecclesiastical tradition ; 
or single out those works of theology which have formed 
and moulded the main current of our Christian litera- 
ture, there will be found a great and even marvellous 
unity, both in the simpler outlines of Divine truth, and 
in its fuller and more scientific development. The im- 
pression of complexity, disorder, and confusion, of 
which such complaints are made, and which are used; 
to terrify the young students into a total rejection of 
Christian theology, is like the result which would be 
produced, if we were to collect all the mistakes of 
astronomical theories and calculations, from the time 
of the Chaldeans downwards, mingling them with all 
the dreams of astrology, and then should advise the 
young astronomer to reject all instruments, and all 
mathematical theories of the solar and starry systems, 
with the copious accumulation of facts in so many ob- 
servatories, and to betake himself, with the naked eye 
alone, to the direct study of the heavens. This would 
be no progress into clearer light, but a backward plunge 
into childish ignorance again. Astronomy is the most 
certain of all the sciences. But this certainty is not 
gained by resting in the first impressions of the senses 
on the motions of the stars ; but by using them and mul- 
tiplying them by assiduous observation, increasing their 
accuracy by instrumental aids, and thus rising through 
them, and beyond them, to a knowledge of the true 
system of the starry universe. 

The same law applies to Christian theology. It 
cannot be gained by neglecting the letter of the Scrip- 
tures ; but it will never be reached by a superficial, 
self-confident approach to them, in the neglect of all 
aid from Christian teachers and guides, as human 
writings to be scanned by critical industry alone. The 



ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 279 

Bible is the most certain of all books, and its theology 
the surest and highest of all sciences, when it is read 
with prayer, with humility, with perseverance, in de- 
pendence on the promised teaching of the Spirit of God, 
and in the use of all the varied helps which He has 
provided for his Church, comparing spiritual things 
with spiritual, and searching for heavenly wisdom as 
for hidden treasure. And this certainty rests upon the 
firmest ground, the direct promise of God himself given 
to every humble and sincere inquirer — " If thou criest 
after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for under- 
standing ; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest 
for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand 
the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OP THE BIBLE. 

The apparent discordance between different statements 
in the histories of the Bible has often been made a 
powerful objection to the doctrine of its inspiration. 
The subject is one which naturally branches out into 
many details, impossible to compress within narrow 
limits. I shall, therefore, in the present chapter, con- 
fine myself chiefly to a few general remarks on some of 
the main difficulties which have perplexed the minds of 
many inquirers, and obscured their faith in the Divine 
authority of the word of God. 

1. Every word of Grod is pure, and, when it proceeds 
from its Divine source, must be free from all error. 
Such is the instinctive conviction of every devout and 
intelligent mind. On the other hand, the Bible is not 
strictly and absolutely free from all error, in the shape 
in which it actually reaches the great majority of 
its readers. Translations, however trustworthy, are not 
completely perfect. The transmission of the text, by 
copyists, may introduce a small amount of deviation 
from the first original. In so large a work, numbers 
and names in the genealogies are peculiarly liable to 
suffer from successive transcriptions. It is thus ad- 
mitted fully, by all well-informed critics and divines, 
that the inspiration of the Bible does not require or 
secure theoretic and mathematical freedom from error, 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 281 

when it reaches the great bulk of its readers, and fulfils 
its great practical object as a revelation to mankind at 
large. Slight errors of transmission and translation 
may intrude, and have intruded, without destroying its 
authority and inspiration, or detracting in any per- 
ceptible degree from its practical worth. 

2. Some writers, starting from this admission, have 
been disposed to proceed a step further. While ad- 
mitting, perhaps, an ideal perfection of the Divine 
messages, before they are clothed in words, they sup- 
pose them to contract a degree of error and imperfec- 
tion, as soon as they are embodied in human language. 
The substance of the thought or doctrine is owned to 
be Divine, but all the details, the phrases, the form, 
the historical circumstances, are supposed to be liable 
to mistake and partial falsehood. In this way all diffi- 
culties, arising from apparent contradictions and his- 
torical discrepancies, are, in their judgment, easily and 
entirely removed. In the G-ospels, for example, har- 
monists are rebuked for striving to establish an agree- 
ment which does not exist, and for refusing to see 
numerous contradictions between the different narra- 
tives ; when they ought rather to have owned freely 
this human imperfection in the evangelists, and only to 
have seen in it a proof of their honesty, and of the sub- 
stantial truth of the message so variously given. 

This view, however simple and plausible it may 
appear at the first glance, is open to two grave and 
insurmountable difficulties. First, it evacuates the 
force of all those passages in which our Lord and his 
Apostles appeal to the written word, not only in the 
mass, but even in separate clauses, reason upon the 
force of single words, and affirm that "it is easier for 
heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law 
to fail." And next, it seems to annul, to a great extent, 



282 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

the main purpose for which the messages of Grod were 
recorded in a written form. This purpose was evidently 
to secure at once the purity and the permanence of 
revealed truth, which, in mere oral tradition, is liable 
either to he corrupted by false additions, or to fade 
away into gradual oblivion. Now, so far as human 
error was permitted to intrude into the original writing, 
this object would be precisely reversed. As far as this 
intrusion extends, error would be imposed with the 
sanction of truth on every later age, would receive a 
wider currency, and acquire a greater permanence than 
it could otherwise have attained. 

This - view, then, of an intermittent, imperfect in- 
spiration, which would leave room for an undefined 
amount of historical error, and maintain a substantial 
truth of doctrine alone, removes seemiug difficulties 
by abandoning the double evidence, a priori and h 
posteriori, from reason, and from the express testimony 
of our Lord, on which the doctrine itself depends. 
It must therefore be, in almost every instance, a mere 
landing-place, either in the departure from traditional 
faith into an entire rejection of the Bible, or in the 
upward progress to a fuller and firmer acceptance of 
its truth, and of its entire authority over the consciences 
of men. 

3. Let us inquire, then, whether the difficulties 
which have seemed so formidable to some critics and 
divines, retain their force on a closer examination ; or 
whether they are not really phantoms which disappear 
before a rigid and exact inquiry. 

Here, first of all, it is needful to get rid of an am- 
biguity, by which the true question has often been 
obscured. Discrepancy may be used in the sense 
either of simple divergence or of positive contradiction. 
Differences of the former kind can create no real diffi- 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OP THE BIBLE. 283 

culty. When two or three inspired accounts are given 
of the same general series of events, there is no reason, 
but quite the reverse, why one should simply repeat 
the other without any variation. . By this means, in 
reality, nearly the whole benefit of a double and triple 
testimony would be lost. It was a maxim of the law 
that " in the mouth of two or three witnesses every 
word should be established." But to fulfil this law, it 
is needful that the testimonies should be really distinct. 
Some partial divergence in the details recorded, or in 
the moulding of the narrative, is plainly desirable, and 
almost essential, that this main object of a plural testi- 
mony may be fully attained. It is only such divergence 
as implies a direct and real contradiction, or the partial 
falsehood of one statement, which can furnish a real 
argument against plenary and complete inspiration. 

4. Again, one statement of the true doctrine of 
inspiration is found in those words of the Apostle, that 
" God at sundry times and in divers manners spake 
in time past to the fathers by the prophets." Here 
three truths are contained, with a gradation in their im- 
portance, which complete the true and full idea of Divine 
inspiration. First, it was God himself who spake by 
the prophets. The messages are truly and properly 
the words of Grod. Next, " he spake by the prophets/' 
not by copying machines, but by living men, who were 
also " holy men of Grocl." (2 Pet. i. 21.) This teaches us 
that the human faculties of the messengers were not 
superseded, but fully employed. St. Luke wrote after 
having gained " perfect information of the facts from the 
beginning ;" and St. Paul's epistles were written " ac- 
cording to the wisdom given unto him." The first phrase 
excludes a lax and partial inspiration ; and the second, a 
mechanical dictation, in which the natural and spiritual 
endowments of the messengers, instead of being per- 



284 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

fected, are set aside. Thirdly, it was " in many parts 
and many modes or forms." One feature in the Scrip- 
tures, thus prominently stated, is the freedom and 
variety of the types or moulds in which various portions 
of it are cast. There is here implied the retention, in 
each case, of special and individual characters arising 
from the form of the communication — as history, psalm, 
proverb, or prophecy, — and also from the distinct position 
of every writer. The diversity arising from the human 
authorship is recognised as one part of the truth, side 
by side with the unity of their common character as 
being alike the messages of Grod. But this principle 
will clearly have the fullest application to parallel 
histories ; since here the distinctness of concurring tes- 
timonies must be one chief object implied in the very 
form of the revelation. Sameness would defeat one 
main purpose for which the parallel histories were given. 
In these cases, of which the chief instances are Kings and 
Chronicles in the Old Testament, and the four Gospels 
in the New, it is most reasonable, even on the view of 
their plenary inspiration, to expect the fullest measure 
of diversity, consistent with the general sameness of 
the narrative, and with the avoidance of positive con- 
tradiction. 

5. The Scriptures, again, are a selection of truth in 
its most condensed form, in order to suit their purpose 
as a comprehensive and permanent record, which, if it 
became too voluminous, would fail of its main object, 
and cease to be generally accessible. This character 
runs throughout the whole of the Bible. Within one 
volume of moderate size we have a sacred history, 
ranging through four thousand years, copious patterns 
of devotion, proverbs of wisdom, sacred dramas, medi- 
tations on human life and its vanity, prophecies of the 
events of distant ages, four biographies of our Lord, 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OP THE BIBLE. 285 

a brief and full history of the apostolic church, and 
various letters containing an ample outline of Christian 
doctrine, duty, and experience. The contrast between 
the brevity of Scripture and the ample material out 
of which the selection is made, is expressed at the 
close of the fourth Grospel. " And there are many 
other things which Jesus did, which, if they should be 
written every one, I suppose that even the world itself 
could not contain the books that should be written." 
So, in the last book of Scripture, the prophet, in one 
case, is expressly restrained from writing what he has 
seen and heard, while in other cases a repeated com- 
mand to write is given him. 

Now this remark sets aside at once a frequent source 
of false reasoning and critical illusion. The silence of a 
sacred historian about certain facts is no proof, and even 
no presumption, that they were unknown to him. It is 
quite enough to account for their absence, if they did 
not fall within the special scope of his message. To 
take one instance, it has often been said that St. Mat- 
thew knows nothing of Joseph's original home being 
Nazareth, and that St. Luke knows nothing of the 
flight into Egypt, or of the visit of the wise men. 
There is no warrant whatever for either statement. 
Silence is here no proof of ignorance ; and the range 
of the narrative of each writer is no reasonable 
measure of the extent of his knowledge. None of 
them professes to write all that he knew. The last of 
them affirms the exact opposite in the strongest terms. 
It is clear, from the fourth gospel, that St. Matthew 
must have been present at the resurrection of Lazarus, 
and still the name never occurs in the first gospel. A 
similar remark applies to the two others. This great 
miracle belonged to the visits to Judaea, which are 
systematically left out in the earlier accounts of the 



286 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

Galilean ministry. So, again, the mission of the Seventy 
must have been well known both to St. Matthew, 
St. Mark, and St. John, who make no allusion to it 
whatever. In like manner, St. Matthew's special object, 
which was to show the fulfilment of the prophecies in 
the person of Christ, made Bethlehem, his predicted 
birthplace, the natural starting-point in his statement ; 
while the historical character of St. Luke made it equally 
natural to record the place where Mary received the 
promise of the incarnation, and to explain how a decree 
of the Eoman emperor led to the temporary removal to 
Bethlehem, and thus was the means of securing the 
fulfilment of Micah's prophecy. 

6. Once more, the truth of history does not preclude, 
in its own nature, all variety in the order of arrange- 
ment. Events, it is true, can only happen in one suc- 
cession ; but all history implies a grouping of actions 
and discourses by a reference to other links than those 
of sequence alone. The two main laws of history are 
these, that events shall be grouped together according 
to the intimacy of their connection, and that each 
group shall be placed as nearly as possible in the 
order of time. The larger and fuller the groups that 
are formed, the wider will be the deviation from a 
single chronological series. And thus histories often 
become less strictly chronological, as the historian dis- 
cerns more clearly the causes of events, and has the 
skill to arrange them by a deeper law than that of 
mere sequence in time. All discrepancies, then, in the 
gospels, which consist only in differences of arrange- 
ment, are of no force to imply contradiction or false- 
hood, unless the true order of occurrence has, in both 
cases, been plainly affirmed. 

7. Historical statements, again, have something which 
they assert, and something else which is merely pro- 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 287 

bable inference, but will commonly be inferred in the 
absence of fuller evidence. Each of them is like a 
planet, with its solid nucleus of fact, and an attached 
atmosphere of probable conclusions. Let two planets 
come into contact, and the mass will be unaltered, but 
their atmospheres will be completely changed, and melt 
into one. So, when two testimonies concur, though 
equally true, each will usually modify the conclusions 
that would have been drawn from the other, while it 
stood alone. We might conclude, for instance, from 
Num. xvi., that Korah, Dathan, and Abiram all perished 
with their families ; but Num. xxvi. 1 1 corrects this 
hasty inference, for it tells us plainly that " the chil- 
dren of Korah died not." From Matt, xxi. 18, 21, we 
might easily suppose that the fig-tree cursed by our 
Lord withered at once under the eyes of the disciples ; 
but from St. Mark's account it is plain that a day and 
night intervened before the result was noticed, and led 
to that impressive conversation. Again, from Luke 
ii. 3 9, we might infer that the return to Nazareth was 
immediately after the legal rites had been performed ; 
but we find from St. Matthew that the flight into Egypt 
came between. In each case there is no real contra- 
diction. We have only to correct, by fuller evidence, 
natural but unproved inferences from the original 
statement. There is contact, but no collision. The 
atmospheres only are altered, and two sets of mere in- 
ferences, that were incompatible, have been harmonized 
together. 

When these truths are borne in mind, there will be left 
only a few discrepancies, comparatively, in the pages of 
the Bible, which bear any signs of involving a real con- 
tradiction. It would be needless to trouble ourselves, 
in these cases, to discover probable or possible modes 
of reconciliation, from any inherent importance of these 



288 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

variations. They affect the practical worth of the Bible 
as little as floating specks in the air can lessen the 
brightness of the sun at noonday. It is simply the 
proneness of men to find excuses for escaping from 
the authority of God's messages, and the reverence 
due to the clear and full statements of Him whose name 
is the Truth, which give importance to the inquiry. 
It should ever be remembered that the authority 
of the Scriptures over the conscience of the Christian 
does not depend on their reaching us in a form abso- 
lutely free from the least trace of error, or on our 
ability to decide the exact point in the course of trans- 
mission, where any slight error, if proved to exist, has 
found entrance. It depends on the fact that these are 
the words of prophets and apostles and evangelists, 
messengers whose commission has been ratified by the 
voice of Christ himself, or by signs and wonders, and 
supernatural gifts of the Spirit of Grod. This authority 
attaches directly to their whole contents, and must 
belong to every part, till we have some direct and 
positive reason to except it from the rest ; whether 
because it can be shown to deviate from the original 
text, or because it involves some form of provable 
inaccuracy and contradiction. This negative evidence, 
also, can only serve to prune off the particular text or 
passage, where such a contradiction is found ; unless 
the cases were so numerous, and so inwrought into the 
texture of the work, as to make it unreasonable to refer 
them to a corruption of the copies, or to some momen- 
tary negligence, at the first, in recording a perfect 
Divine message. 

It would require a volume to enter in detail into 
the various cases in which a charge of inconsistency has 
been brought against the Bible histories. I will con- 
fine myself to a brief notice of those which have been 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 289. 

alleged by two very different authorities, and different 
schools of thought ; first, in the Seventh Essay, which 
seems almost entirely to set aside all the authority of 
the Bible as the word of Grod, and a fountain of certain 
truth ; and secondly, in Dean Alford's able work on the 
New Testament, where a lax and lowered view of in- 
spiration is joined with a firm and full maintenance 
of all the great outlines and doctrines of the Christian 
Faith. 

I. The following are the chief grounds alleged, in the 
Seventh Essay, for refusing to the evangelists the cha- 
racter of " perfect accuracy or agreement." 

1. First, one supposes the original dwelling-place of 
our Lord's parents to have been Bethlehem, another 
Nazareth (Matt. ii. 1, 22; Luke ii. 4). Eleven or 
twelve pages in Strauss's " Leben Jesu " are occupied 
with a laborious development of this objection. 

This difficulty arises solely from a neglect of the 
fifth previous remark. St. Matthew says nothing about 
Bethlehem as " the original dwelling place " of Joseph 
and Mary, but introduces it simply as the place where 
Jesus was born. Nay, on looking closely, we have 
a clear sign that he did not regard it as the original 
dwelling-place. Why else should the mention of it be 
delayed till the visit of the magi, and not given at 
once on the first mention of Joseph and his vision ? 
Why not have said, " When his mother Mary was es- 
poused to Joseph at Bethlehem," if Bethlehem, in the 
first passage as well as the second, were supposed to be 
the true scene of the occurrence ? The argument from 
Matt. ii. 22 is equally destitute of real force. For the 
natural conclusion that Joseph and Mary would draw 
from the signal wonders at Bethlehem, and from their 
own views of the expected Messiah, would make them 
infer that Judea, and the city of David, were the proper 

u 



290 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

place for the education of the infant Jesus. This is 
confirmed by John vii, 42, which shews the popular 
impression to have been precisely what Matt. ii. 22 
implies in the mind of Joseph, that Bethlehem was not 
only to be the birth-place of Messiah, but also the scene 
of his life before his public work began. 

2. " They trace his genealogy in two different 
ways." This is the old difficulty, which has been so 
often answered. When we remember that our Lord's 
birth was supernatural ; that he had a real mother and 
a reputed father; that the genealogy by his reputed 
father, which would naturally be assigned to him, 
though his in a legal and improper sense, was not that 
by which he really took on him our nature, but that 
he was " man of the substance of his mother," and 
of her alone ; the presence of two distinct genealogies, 
one improperly his, but properly of Joseph, and the 
other improperly Joseph's, but his in strictest pro- 
priety, instead of a real difficulty, is in direct harmony 
with the great doctrine of the Incarnation. 

3 . " One mentions the thieves' blasphemy ; the other 
has preserved the record of the penitent thief." 

Two steps are here wanting, to form a real contra- 
diction. First, if St. Matthew had distinctly affirmed 
that each of the two malefactors had blasphemed our! 
Lord, this could not prove an after-repentance on the 
part of one of them to be impossible and untrue. We 
might then have expected some allusion to his own 
more recent offence ; but it would not be essential 
for St. Luke to mention every word of his penitent con- 
fession. In the next place, St. Matthew does not make 
the statement separately concerning each of the two 
thieves, any more than each of the passers-by, or 
each of the chief priests, the scribes, and elders. He 
describes the conduct of three classes, using in each 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 291 

case the same plural term. In the two former cases, 
where the individuals are many, no one infers that the 
general statement belongs separately to each individual. 
Of thousands who passed by, there might be only a 
few who used the words, " Thou that destroy est the 
temple, and builclest it in three days, save thyself." 
The same is probably true of the chief priests, scribes, 
and elders. The rest of the class, even by their silence, 
were involved in a common guilt, and included in a 
common description. The case of the two thieves may 
have been, and probably was, exactly similar. The 
malignant conduct of three classes, the multitudes, the 
chief priests and scribes, and the malefactors, are given 
in St. Matthew ; and the exceptions of remorse and pity, 
the wailing of the women, the people who beheld and 
smote their breasts, the confession of the penitent thief, 
the half hidden under-currents of natural or godly 
sorrow, are recorded by St. Luke. There is thus unity 
of character in each account, and a real consistency 
between them. 

4. " They appear to differ about the day and hour 
of the crucifixion." This objection may be answered 
in the words of another essayist, that " if it be merely 
one of appearances, and not of realities, it can teach us 
nothing." An objector, who states his difficulty in this 
manner, cannot be very sure of his own ground. 

In what sense do they " appear to differ " as to the 
day ? No event could be more deeply graven on their 
memories. In none could a mistake of the day be, in 
itself, more incredible. They all refer it to the Friday 
in the week of the Passover. The supposed difference 
is not in the day of the Crucifixion, for the weekly 
cycle is fixed and certain, but in the week-date, that 
year, of the Jewish Passover. Even this diversity, I 
believe, is an " appearance " and not a reality. The 

u 2 



292 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

misunderstanding of one text in the fourth gospel is 
the only reason for supposing that it contradicts the 
consenting evidence of the three others, which all re- 
present Thursday as the evening of the Paschal supper, 
and Friday as the holiday or great festal day. The 
difficulty about the hour is equally an appearance. For 
a comparison of John xviii. 28 ; xix. 14, with the few 
incidents between them, seems decisive in favour of 
Townson's view, that the hours in St. John date from 
midnight, like our own ; and on this supposition all the 
statements agree fully with each other. 

5. " The narrative of the woman who anointed the 
Lord is told in all four, but each has more or less con- 
siderable variations." It is here assumed that the 
event, in all the four Gospels, is the same. But the 
account in St. Luke differs in every particular, except 
the anointing only. It was in a city of Galilee, while 
the other was in Judaea, in the village of Bethany. It 
was before that circuit of Galilee, at the close of which 
our Lord began to speak in parables ; and the other was 
a few days before the crucifixion. The woman, in one 
case, was a notorious sinner ; in the other, the sister of 
the mistress who entertained our Lord, and of one of 
the guests who sat by his side. The motive, in one case, 
was gratitude for special sins forgiven ; and in the other, 
for loving intimacy, and a brother raised from the dead. 
The objector, the objection, the reply, the promise, are 
all entirely distinct, and even plainly incompatible. 
Even the parting words alone, " go in peace," which 
prove the woman to have been a stranger in the party, 
and could never have been applied to Mary in her sister's 
house with Lazarus, at the table, are enough to prove 
that the two events are wholly different. When the 
blunder of confounding them has been rectified, the 
three accounts of the later anointing at Bethany have 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 293 

no contradiction whatever. There is only some uncer- 
tainty, whether St. John has placed it a little earlier, or 
the two others a little later, than its exact time. The 
latter opinion seems rather more probable, since it forms 
a parenthesis in both Gospels ; but either view implies 
no real contradiction. 

These are the selected examples of inaccuracy in 
the Gospels ; and there is not one of them, when fairly 
examined, which justifies the least charge of real con- 
tradiction. But we are instructed to make a catalogue 
" with the view of estimating their cumulative weight ; 
since it is obvious that the answer, which might be 
admitted in the case of a single discrepancy, will not 
be the true answer, if there are many." Here there is 
a neglect of the principle in the third of the previous 
remarks. Discrepancies, in the wider sense of the word, 
are not contradictions. On the contrary, a real diversity 
to the full extent that truth will allow is one essential 
feature of the gospel narratives. It is the only way 
by which they could fulfil the main purpose for which 
the history was given in this form, so as to satisfy 
the legal requirement — " In the mouth of two or three 
witnesses shall every word be established." For auto- 
mata, however high the influence that directs their 
movements, are not, and cannot be, witnesses. This 
supposes an intelligent person, who uses his own senses, 
consults his own memory, and describes or narrates 
occurrences which he has seen, or which have been 
told him by others, from a point of sight peculiarly 
his own. We have just seen six or seven discrepancies, 
involving no single case of contradiction. Multiply 
such cases a hundredfold, and the truth of the Scrip- 
tures will remain unimpaired by their " cumulative 
evidence." 

II. The same general hypothesis, of partial inaccuracy 



294: THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

and contradiction in the gospels, has obtained of late 
a wider currency through Dean Alford's valuable work, 
in connection with a reverent and Christian tone of 
thought, and critical labours worthy of high esteem. 
The high reputation of the author, and the extensive 
use of the work among theological students, appear to 
justify a few remarks in this place. If the view be 
supported by strong evidence, there would be a sinful 
want of candour in refusing to accept it through any 
fear of consequences, since truth alone is safe, and 
error of all kinds is dangerous. But if the reasoning 
is misty and obscure, and the view a groundless con- 
cession, without evidence, to superficial criticism, it 
must be like a dead fly in precious ointment ; and some 
caution against its acceptance, even on such authority, 
belongs clearly to the object of the present work. 

1. The real discrepancies, according to this able 
writer, " are very few, and nearly all of one kind. 
They are simply the results of the entire independence 
of the accounts. They consist merely in different 
chronological arrangements." Such are the transposi- 
tions of the passage to the Gradarenes, Matt. viii. 28 ; 
Mark v. i. ; Luke viii. 26 ; and the difference of position 
of the incidents in Matt. viii. 19 — 22 : Luke ix. 57 — 61. 
The way of dealing with such discrepancies has been 
twofold. Enemies of the faith have recognised them, 
and pushed them to the utmost, often attempting to 
create them where they do not exist. Equally un- 
worthy of the evangelists has been the course of those 
who are called the orthodox harmonists. They have 
usually taken upon them to state that such narratives 
do not refer to the same incidents, and so to save, as 
they imagine, the credit of the evangelists, at the expense 
of common fairness and candour. " The fair Chris- 
tian critic, with no desire to create discrepancies, will 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 295 

candidly recognise them where they unquestionably 
exist. ... If the arrangement itself were matter of 
Divine inspiration, then we have no right to vary it 
in the slightest degree." (Prol. pp. 12, 13, 19.) 

There is here, I think, no little confusion of thought. 
First, accounts written under the common guidance 
and especial control of the Spirit of God, cannot possibly 
be " entirely independent." Such a description, rigor- 
ously taken, excludes inspiration altogether. It makes 
them of self-interpretation, because they have come 
solely by the will of man ; and would set aside their 
higher character, as parts in one harmonious and Divine 
scheme of revelation, in which " holy men of God spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 

Next, differences of arrangement involve contradic- 
tion and error, only in cases where every event is fixed 
by clear notes of time, or where the writer has pro- 
fessed his purpose to adhere throughout to the exact 
chronological succession. But this does not apply to 
the case of the Gospels. St. Luke is the only one who 
expressly states his purpose to write icade^ or " in 
order," and we have clear proof that in the whole Book 
of Acts, and at least one half of the Gospel, the design 
has been fulfilled. The inversions that have probable 
evidence belong mainly to St. Matthew, and except 
perhaps in one or two instances, wherever there is like- 
lihood of such an inversion, there is no direct note of 
the true sequence in time. Thus in Matt. ix. 2, the 
words, " And behold," may very well introduce a new 
incident, though its true date, as we learn from the two 
other gospels, was before the return from Gadara. 

The idea that inspiration would forbid an historian 
to arrange his materials, except by mere sequence, like 
the writer of an almanac or annual register, has no 
show of reason or common sense in its favour. Events 



296 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

have other laws of connection than simple sequence, 
and narratives, whether inspired or uninspired, have 
other objects to fulfil than those of a table of chronology. 
In the First Gospel there seems a plain reason for a 
partial departure from the strict order of time, in order 
to bring together, early in its course, two or three 
cardinal discourses of our Lord, the Sermon on the 
Mount, and the commission of the Apostles. No one 
has a right to alter the arrangement of the Gospels as 
inspired narratives ; but no one has a right to assume, 
invariably, that the order of mention was conceived by 
the writer to be the order of time, and then to impute 
falsehood and error to the words of inspiration, because 
of an assumption destitute of all reason. 

The censure which has been freely thrown, here and 
elsewhere, on the orthodox harmonists, is due mainly 
to some mistiness and confusion of thought. If these 
harmonists advanced their own conclusions as abso- 
lutely certain, and not merely as the most probable 
view at which they were able to arrive of the true 
succession of the events, they would be worthy of real 
blame. But this the best and wisest of them have not 
clone. On the other hand, it is no slight inconsistency, 
into which some critics who censure them have fallen, 
to maintain that distinct narratives are not really incon- 
sistent, and still to decry, one by one, every possible 
alternative of their harmony, as strained, improbable, 
and incredible. This clamour against harmonies is, in 
reality, a slight infusion of the mythical theory, which 
has tainted unconsciously the views of some critics, 
otherwise orthodox and sound. If our Lord's life be 
a reality and not a fiction, then all the events in the 
four gospels must have had a real sequence in time. 
The four narratives, if they furnish materials, on the 
one hand, for a full conception of our Lord's spiritual 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 297 

character, furnish them, also, for a definite biographical 
outline in the true order of succession. It may not be 
easy to attain the full ideal conception, or the precise 
historical reality, but we may approach to each of them. 
The limit, on either side, is a perfect doctrinal Christ- 
ology, and a perfect chronological harmony. But if we 
aim at one, and proscribe and defame all attempts to 
reach the other, then we sacrifice the historical reality 
of our Lord's life to the spiritual idea, and are taking 
the first step towards the Straussian or mythical pole of 
infidel delusion. 

2. " It is more consistent with the fair interpretation 
of the text, to suppose that Matthew himself was not 
aware of the events Luke i. ii., and wrote under the 
impression that Bethlehem was the original dwelling 
place ; certainly, had we only his gospel, this inference 
would be universally made." 

Now, since it is owned that his narrative contains 
" nothing inconsistent " with St. Luke, this supposition 
implies no contradiction. It would rather prove a 
special control of the Spirit of God, whereby the 
writers, though in partial ignorance, were still kept from 
all real inconsistency. But the inference has really no 
warrant but a superficial view of the history. Once let 
us realize the natural effect of the special revelations 
on the minds of Joseph and Mary, and compare them 
with the popular view of Micah's prophecy, as including 
the education of Messiah, no less than his birth (John 
vii. 46), and the need of a fresh message to induce a 
removal to Galilee will appear perfectly natural. In 
fact, the opposite view really implies that St. Matthew 
invented the incident in ii. 22. For if the fact of 
Joseph's original residence at Nazareth is consistent 
with his need of such a message from God, then the 
Evangelist's knowledge of the fact must be equally 



298 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

consistent with his statement, that such a message was 
given. 

3. " As the two accounts now stand it is wholly 
impossible to suggest any satisfactory method of uniting 
them : whoever has attempted it has violated probability 
and common sense. On the other hand, it is im- 
possible to say that they could not be reconciled by a 
thorough knowledge of the facts themselves. If 
St. Luke had seen St. Matthew's gospel, or vice versd, 
the variations are utterly inexplicable ; and the greatest 
absurdities are involved in the writings of those who 
assume this, and then proceed to harmonize. Of the 
presentation, etc., Matthew's account knows nothing : of 
the visit of the Magi, the murder of the Innocents, and 
the flight to Egypt, Luke is unaware." 

These remarks are more difficult by far to reconcile 
with each other, and with the inspiration of both 
gospels, than the two accounts themselves. First, if it 
were impossible for St. Luke to have written as he has 
done, if he had seen St. Matthew's account, how is it 
possible for the Holy Spirit, by whom his writing 
was controlled,, and .who certainly must have known 
the precise nature of the other record, to have allowed 
him to dispose it in such a form, or to make such 
omissions ? Why should the very same fact, the exist- 
ence of St. Matthew's account, be a decisive reason, 
with the Holy Spirit, for directing the second narrative 
of the infancy into this particular form, and a decisive 
reason to the evangelist, if it were known, rendering 
that form impossible ? Is it essential to the character 
of a sacred historian, that his views on the choice and 
right disposition of his materials should be directly the 
reverse of those, which the facts themselves require us 
to ascribe to the Spirit of God ? 

Next, it is a plain contradiction to suppose that 



OX ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 299 

every attempted union of the two accounts is a violation 
of common sense and probability, and still to imagine 
that they may be reconciled by facts now unknown. 
The flight to Egypt, if a real fact, must have occurred 
after the Presentation, since the interval before it is 
plainly too short for the journey. It must either, then, 
come before the return to Nazareth in Luke ii. 39; or 
there must have been a later return to Bethlehem, and 
a later return to Nazareth again. The first is the 
simple and natural view, adopted by most harmonists. 
The latter a possible, but much less probable alternative. 
To style them both violations of common sense, and still 
to hold that the two accounts are true and reconcilable, 
if other facts were known, is to overlook and contradict 
the very nature of the problem. The converse reason- 
ing is clearly irresistible. If both accounts are true, 
the flight to Egypt must have occurred, either before 
the Presentation, or after it, and before the return to 
Nazareth in St. Luke, or else after that return. But 
the first is impossible from the limits of time, and the 
third is improbable. Therefore the second must be 
highly probable ; and either the second or third, instead 
of violating probability, must be certainly true. 

4. " The reconciliation of the two genealogies has 
never been accomplished ; and every attempt to do it 
has violated either ingenuousness or common sense. 
The two genealogies are both the line of Joseph, and 
not of Mary." 

Now since almost every conceivable variety has been 
proposed, if both genealogies are inspired, some one of 
these solutions must not only be possible, but the very 
truth, designed by the Holy Spirit when both were given. 
The above remark is thus harder to reconcile with 
common sense than the harmonies it condemns. It is 
even in direct contradiction with the remark which 



300 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

follows it. For if both the genealogies are Joseph's 
since he could not have two real fathers, either the 
main principle of Grotius, that Heli was his natural 
and Jacob his legal father, or the opposite view, that 
Jacob was the real, and Heli his legal father, must 
plainly be true. But if one of two alternatives is 
clearly true, they cannot, both of them, be violations 
of common sense and probability. In fact, the usual 
view, that St. Luke has given the true genealogy, and 
that Heli was the father-in-law of Joseph, may be 
established alike by external and internal evidence; 
and the relapse from it into a different solution has 
created artificial difficulties, where simple-minded be- 
lievers find only a deep harmony of Divine wisdom. 

5. " A comparison of Luke iv. 16 — 24 with Matt, 
xiii. 53 — 58, Mark vi. 1 — 6, entered on without bias, 
can scarcely fail to convince us of their identity. That 
he should have been thus treated at his first visit, and 
then marvelled at their unbelief on his second, is utterly 
impossible. That the same question should have been 
twice asked, and answered with the same proverb, is 
highly improbable. The words ' whatever we have 
heard,' must refer to more than one miracle. Here the 
order of St. Luke begins to be confused." 

Now since St. Luke openly professes his purpose to 
write " in order," and with perfect knowledge of all 
things from the very first, the view in this extract does 
imply a real inaccuracy and contradiction in the Gospels. 
For the visit to Nazareth in St. Matthew and St. Mark 
is plainly made to follow the parables, and the raising 
of the ruler's daughter, and comes shortly before the 
mission of the Twelve. Hence, if St. Luke speaks of 
the same visit, the very first event he names in our 
Lord's ministry is wholly out of its true order, is trans- 
ferred from the later half of the period to its first 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 301 

beginning, and even fastened to a wrong place by the 
words at the close. For St. Luke plainly describes the 
course of teaching at Capernaum, and the cure of the 
demoniac, as results which followed our Lord's escape 
from the Nazarenes. 

When we read the accounts, however, without bias, 
it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that two 
different visits are described. The first, in St. Luke, 
instead of answering to Matt. xiii. 53-58, answers 
plainly to the brief notice in Matt. iv. 13 — " and leaving 
Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum." A 
visit to his own city, at the opening of his ministry, 
is there evidently implied ; and St. Luke simply gives 
us the full particulars of that conduct, which led our 
Saviour to leave Nazareth, and choose another centre 
for his Gralilean ministry. The passage read, and the 
brief comment, evidently suit the public opening of his 
message in Galilee, and lose much of their force, if they 
are placed eighteen months or two years later. The 
words " as his custom was," agree with the same view. 
For he must have been accustomed, up to the opening 
of his ministry, to have frequented this very synagogue 
on each sabbath-day, which custom was now broken off 
by the conduct of the Nazarenes. But if referred to a 
later time, all the special force of the words is lost, 
and they would apply less to this synagogue than to 
almost any other. In the visit in St. Mark he wrought 
some miracles, even in Nazareth, on a few sick folks, 
but the account in St. Luke makes such a result of that 
visit clearly impossible. In fact the whole tone of the 
two narratives, their beginning, middle, and close, are 
quite different. 

Two reasons alone are urged for confounding the 
visits in one. First, that our Lord could not possibly 
have marvelled at their unbelief, if they had rejected 



302 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

him with violence already. But even viewing the 
facts in a purely human light, there is no force in this 
objection. Undeserved violence, and open wrong done 
to those whom it is a duty to honour, often produce 
a strong reaction. By comparing Mark hi. 31-35, it is 
probable that the second visit was at the request of 
some of the Nazarenes, who had become ashamed 
of their violence, when the miracles and fame of Jesus 
were past dispute. In this case their sullen persistence 
in unbelief would be more surprising, even to a human 
view, because the force of his miracles had made them 
ashamed of their brutal violence. But the true force of 
the words lies still deeper. They do not mean that our 
Lord was taken by surprise ; but simply teach how 
strange a madness unbelief in its more aggravated 
forms must be reckoned, in the eyes of One who is per- 
fectly holy. 

The other reason, from the repeated use of the same 
proverb, becomes a strong proof, on a closer view, of 
the distinctness of the visits, and not of their sameness. 
For when our Lord's ministry was hardly begun, and 
his name scarcely known in Galilee, he quotes it in 
the negative form : " No prophet is accepted in his own 
country." But when, after eighteen months of preach- 
ing, with constant miracles of Divine power, his fame 
was widely spread, and all Galilee looked up to him 
as a " great prophet," in whom " God had visited his 
people ;" the proverb is quoted in an opposite way, and 
exhibits the Nazarenes as the solitary exception in 
the midst of the general acknowledgment of his claims. 
" A prophet is not without honour, save in his own 
country, and kindred, and father's house." Thus 
every circumstance really conspires to prove the visits 
distinct, and the alleged inaccuracy of the gospels 
resolves itself into a new example of perfect consistency 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 303 

and truth. We have merely an instance where the wise 
rule has been neglected, which the learned writer him- 
self has laid down, " that similar incidents must not be 
too hastily assumed to be the same." (Prol. p. 13.) 

6. "In the last apology of St. Stephen, which he 
spake being full of the Holy Ghost, we have at least 
two demonstrable historical inaccuracies." (Prol. p. 19.) 

The first of these is thus explained, in Acts vii. 4. — 
" The Jewish chronology, which Stephen follows, was at 
fault here, owing to the circumstance of Terah's death 
being mentioned, Gen. xi. 32, before the command to 
Abraham to leave Haran, it not having been observed 
that the mention is anticipatory." The real error, 
however, is that of the critic alone, who entirely over- 
looks the true explanation, adopted by Usher, Clinton, 
and most of the best chronologers, and which is con- 
firmed by Gen. xi. 29, and the age of Sarah; that 
Abraham was not the oldest, but the youngest son of 
Terah. For Sarah, we are clearly taught, was the 
sister of Milcah and daughter of Haran, and was only 
ten years younger than Abraham, Gen. xi. 29, xvii. 17. 
The words of St. Stephen, then, instead of contradicting 
Genesis, fix its meaning, and establish the harmony of 
its separate statements ; and the opposite view, while 
it charges him with error, is itself " a demonstrable 
historical inaccuracy." 

The second asserted error is in Acts vii. 15, 16. 
" So Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and 
our fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and 
laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum 
of money, of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem." 
Here there is, no doubt, an apparent confusion of two 
purchases and two burials. Abraham bought a burial- 
place at Hebron, from Ephron, in which Jacob and 
Leah were buried. Jacob, again, bought a piece of 



304 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

ground at Sycheni from the sons of Hamor the father 
of Shechem, where the bones of Joseph were buried. 
We have no account of the burial-place of the other 
patriarchs. 

Now here it is important to remember when and 
where, and before whom, the words were spoken. It 
was at Jerusalem, where the study of the law was at 
its height, before the hostile Sanhedrim, and the high 
priest, and all the scribes, men accustomed to count 
the very letters of the law of Moses, that St. Stephen, 
full of the Holy Spirit, was making his formal defence 
against a charge of contempt of the law, after a con- 
troversy upon that, law in the synagogues for many 
days, in which no adversaries " were able to resist 
the wisdom and the spirit with which he spake." Is 
it consistent with reason or common sense, to impute 
to such a man, at such a time, and in the presence of 
such judges and adversaries, the double mistake of 
supposing that Jacob was buried in Sychem, in con- 
tradiction to the full narrative in the close of Genesis ; 
and that Abraham lived in the time of Shechem, though 
his death and burial in Hebron are recorded in Glen. 
xxv., before mention of Jacob's birth ; and the pur- 
chase of the ground in Shechem, is stated in Gen. xxxiii. 
shortly before the death of Isaac, and eighty years after 
Abraham's death ? Is it rational to expound this verse, 
so as to make Stephen, a learned Jew, full of the Holy 
Spirit, more ignorant of the sacred history, of which he 
is giving a rapid outline, than a well-informed Sunday 
school child in these days ? 

On the other hand, the explanation of Flacius and 
Bengel is simple and complete. St. Stephen, as being 
thoroughly familiar with the details of the two histories, 
and speaking to the Sanhedrim, who were equally fami- 
liar with them, compresses the two into one by a series 



ON ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE. 305 

of mental ellipses, which his audience would at once 
supply for themselves. The two incidents are referred 
to by a regular alternation. Jacob is named, and not 
Joseph, of those who were buried ; Sychem, and not 
Hebron, of the two burial-places ; Abraham, and not 
Jacob, of the two purchasers ; and the sons of Emmor, 
the father of Sychem, and not Ephron the Hittite, of the 
two parties from whom the purchase was made. There 
is here too much method in the seeming inaccuracy, to 
leave any reasonable doubt of its real source. Bengel 
has remarked, with his usual judgment : — " In writing, 
omissions of this kind are usually marked by the pen ; 
but they may be admitted in discourse, when, in a 
matter fully known, and present equally to the mind of 
the speaker and the hearers, merely what is enough is 
spoken, and the other words, which would hinder the 
flow of the discourse, are to be reckoned as if they were 
spoken also." 

It would occupy too much space to enter here upon 
other alleged discrepancies, and especially those two 
main subjects, the last Passover, and the order of 
events on the resurrection-day. I believe that they both 
admit of an adequate solution, which changes them from 
stumbling-blocks to the faith into powerful confirma- 
tions of the gospel narrative. 

To conclude, the presence of a few slight inaccuracies 
in the Gospels, or in other histories of Scripture, would 
be no decisive argument for a lowered theory of their 
inspiration, consistent with the entrance of human error ; 
unless these were clearly inwrought into the texture of 
the narrative, and were more than solitary specks on the 
surface, easily accounted for by defective transmission, 
and as easily removed. But while there is ample 
proof, in the Gospels, of the diversity of the testimonies, 
and the independent authority of the four witnesses, 



S06 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

the attempt to establish a contradiction, whether by 
Christian critics, or sceptical adversaries of the faith, 
when submitted to a close examination, invariably fails. 
Its usual result will be to bring to light some un- 
designed coincidence, some delicate harmony of truth, 
which escapes the careless reader, and only reveals 
itself to a patient, humble, and reverent study of these 
oracles of God. 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 307 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 

The discoveries of modern science have often been sup- 
posed to form a strong disproof of the inspiration and 
Divine authority of the Scriptures. Much has been 
written on both sides in this important controversy. 
The lines of argument have also been various, alike in 
the defenders and assailants, till the whole subject is 
involved, to many minds, in no slight perplexity and 
confusion. The chief topics in the controversy are the 
Bible Astronomy, the History of Creation, the History 
of the Flood, and the Unity and Antiquity of Mankind. 
In all these the main question to be answered is of this 
nature : Does the Bible, in its allusions to scientific 
truth, agree with the doctrine that its messages are the 
words of God, or betray itself to be the production of 
fallible Jewish writers, tinged throughout with undeni- 
able and manifest error ? 

The contrast, arising from these opposite views of 
the Bible, may easily be exaggerated in their probable 
effect on its scientific allusions. Uninspired writers, 
who are content to adhere modestly to the teaching of 
the senses, and do not pretend to make discoveries, or 
to speculate on secret causes, may escape, almost en- 
tirely, the fault of propounding scientific error. On 
the other hand, the great end of Divine revelation is 
not the diffusion of natural knowledge, but the moral 

x 2 



308 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

renovation of mankind. Facts of a scientific character 
are plainly collateral, and not the main object of the 
work. Such messages would diverge from their true 
purpose, if they anticipated the discoveries of science 
in some distant age. A summary of modern astronomy, 
geology, chemistry, or electricity, we feel instinctively, 
would be quite out of place in such an early revelation 
of the will of God to men. It would, in fact, be a 
supernatural prophecy of a very peculiar kind, less in- 
structive to mankind in general than those which have 
actually been given, and far more useless and per- 
plexing to the readers of every intermediate age. 

A just view of the subject will therefore produce 
great caution in our acceptance either of objections to 
Scripture, or supposed confirmations of its truth, drawn 
from the scientific or physical allusions scattered through 
its pages. If its purpose were scientific, we might 
expect to find in it wonderful scientific discoveries, 
assuming that it is a true revelation from God. On 
the other hand, if its writers were not only uninspired, 
but rash, presumptuous impostors, who sought the credit 
of knowledge beyond their fellows, then scientific errors 
would be almost sure to abound. But the contrast, in 
this one feature, between good and fallible men, who 
write with modesty and reverence, and true revelations 
in which the Almighty suits his message to the actual 
wants and state of mankind, would be far less striking 
and conspicuous than many seem to assume. It is only 
on a few points that we may expect some intimation 
to be given, that the God of the Bible is also the Lord 
of nature, " in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge." 

There is, however, one point of view in which the 
negative presumption for the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures has, even at first sight, no little force. For they 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 309 

do evidently claim to be a revelation from God. The 
account of creation itself, on any other view, is a mani- 
fest absurdity. If this claim be groundless, the writers 
cannot be classed among modest and cautious men. 
Presumption in that which is the greatest must lead 
us to expect presumption in that which ranks far lower 
in importance. He who invents messages from the 
Creator, is not likely to be scrupulous in his claims to 
special acquaintance with the works of God. Hence 
false revelations, almost invariably, involve some 
flagrant contradiction of true science. Hinduism, at 
this moment, is melting away under a system of secular 
education, which undermines and destroys the authority 
of its Shasters and Yedas, because of the false geogra- 
phy and physics interwoven with their theology. False 
religion and false science are there so inseparably 
united, that any scheme of instruction, in which the 
truths of science are taught, and the truths of God's 
word are withheld, becomes really equivalent, in practice, 
to a direct propagation of irreligion and unbelief. And 
hence, conversely, the mere absence of false science, in 
a professed revelation from heaven, is no slight pre- 
sumption in favour of its truth. The claim of Divine 
authority, on questions relating to man's moral state 
and future destiny, is only confirmed by the absence of 
pretended discoveries with regard to the constitution 
and laws of the natural world, which have been com- 
mitted to the slow and laborious decipherment of man's 
native intelligence. 

I. The Astronomy of the Bible is the first and earliest 
of those topics, from which scientific assaults on its 
iuspiration have been raised. It had nearly passed, 
indeed, into oblivion, when kindred questions in geo- 
logy and physiology have revived it once more. The 
revival of science, we have been told, displaced the 



310 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Ptolemaic by the Copernican theory. But the Hebrew 
records, the basis of our faith, manifestly countenance 
the opinion of the earth's immobility. Galileo was 
compelled by the inquisition to sign the statement, 
that " the proposition that the sun is the centre of the 
world, and immovable, is absurd, philosophically false, 
and formally heretical." But the brilliant progress of 
science subdued the minds of men. The controversy 
between faith and knowledge slumbered, and the limited 
views of the universe in the Old Testament ceased to 
be felt as religious difficulties. The progress of geology, 
a new science, has forced attention to the subject once 
more. The prima-facie view of the Bible narrative 
reverses, to a great extent, our present astronomical, as 
well as geological views of the universe. 

This astronomical objection, now revived from a long 
sleep, has never had much weight with candid and 
thoughtful men. It is true that the Romish inquisitors, 
who condemned Galileo, have lent the whole weight 
of their scientific and theological eminence to the cause 
of infidelity, and their names naturally stand foremost 
in the proof that the Bible and modern astronomy con- 
tradict each other. But the authority of Newton 
himself, which many may be disposed to rank higher on 
such a question, is thrown decisively into the opposite 
scale. The immortal writer of the Principia, it is clear 
from his later works, did not share the perplexity which 
some smatterers in astronomy profess to feel, when they 
observe that the Bible speaks on these subjects in the 
common language of all mankind. When we are told, 
for instance, that " the sun was risen upon the earth, 
when Lot entered Zoar," it is not Newton who com- 
plains that we do not read, in its place, a scientific 
statement such as this, — " that Palestine had revolved, 
when Lot entered the city, until its tangent plane 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 311 

coincided once more with a radius vector from the sun." 
True science is cautious and modest, and is not easily 
betrayed into such absurdities. 

In reality, the whole objection to the language of 
Scripture on this subject arises from the influence of 
three errors — that scientific statements of the earth's 
motion are absolute, and not relative truth ; that popular 
language is simply false, and not relatively true ; and 
that the relation of matter to matter, in connection with 
the laws of force and motion, is of higher importance 
than its relation to the senses and universal experience 
of mankind. 

First, the statements of modern science, after all, 
embody relative, and not absolute truth. All motion, 
and all action, so far as science can reveal it, is simply 
correlative. We cannot conceive of a fixed position in 
absolutely empty space. Yiewing first our own system 
as a whole, the planets do not, in strictness of speech, 
revolve round the sun, but the sun and the planets 
move alike around the common centre of gravity. The 
doctrine that " the sun is immovable from its place " 
may not be " formally heretical " as the inquisitors 
affirmed, but there can be no doubt that it is " philo- 
sophically false." If popular language, then, were 
replaced by that of the Oopernican theory, the result 
would be only, on the principles of the objection, to sub- 
stitute one scientific mistake for another. But it is now 
ascertained, also, that the whole solar system is in move- 
ment towards a point not very far, in direction, from the 
bright star of Lyra. The true nature, therefore, of the 
earth's pathway through space, is not a circle or ellipse 
in a fixed plane around the sun as its centre, but a 
complex spiral, thirty degrees aslant from the vertical, 
in which the interval of the successive rounds is four- 
fifths of their diameter. And we have no assurance 



312 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

that this result is absolute and final. For most of the 
stars from which the motion of the sun is deduced 
belong to the great system of the milky way, and it is 
by no means impossible that these may partake of a 
common motion with regard to other sidereal systems. 
There are thus four or five modes of conception, all 
equally relative, as the observer is on the earth, on the 
sun, in a fixed position with regard to the centre of the 
solar system, a fixed position in the sidereal system, or 
one still more remote and independent. 

Again, it is a great mistake to conceive that the 
language of common life, adopted also in Scripture, 
is the expression of simple falsehood, and not of a most 
important variety of scientific truth. Thus we have 
been told that the account in Genesis " does not describe 
physical realities, but only outward appearances ; that 
is, it gives a description false in fact, and one which 
can teach us no scientific truth whatever." There is, 
however, no ground at all for this fancied contrast 
between facts and appearances. Appearances are simply 
those facts, in relation to the senses of men, by which 
alone we come to the knowledge of other facts not im- 
mediately observed, and in some cases not observable. 
Every sunrise and sunset, and every meridian transit of 
a star, is as much an astronomical fact as the New- 
tonian theory, the rotation of the earth, or the elliptic 
shape of its annual orbit. In reality, it is facts of this 
kind which form the whole material of modern astronomy 
in its most advanced form. Practical astronomers have 
been compelled to introduce a large variety of technical 
terms, all framed on precisely the same principles, and 
moulded by the same laws of thought, as the phrases of 
Scripture and of common life. Such, for instance, are 
the transits of Yenus and Mercury, the occultation of 
stars behind the moon, the contact of the sun and moon 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 313 

in an eclipse, the immersion and emersion of Jupiter's 
satellites, the transit instrument for observing the 
transit of stars across the meridian, their elevation by 
refraction and depression by parallax, the preceding and 
following side of the heavens, right and oblique as- 
cension, the entrance of stars into the field of the tele- 
scope, and the upper and lower culmination of circum- 
polar stars, when they either pass the zenith, or graze 
the horizon. These are a few conspicuous examples of 
a fixed and constant law of scientific language, which 
runs through the whole range of practical and instru- 
mental astronomy. The maxim which charges the 
Bible with scientific falsehood because of its astronomical 
phrases, fastens the same charge on the ' Nautical Al- 
manac,' and the ' Connaissance des Temps,' and indeed 
on every record whatever of the materials or the results 
of modern astronomy. 

Still further, the relations of matter to matter, or 
to an observer perched in the ideal centre of our 
solar system, are far less important, in a practical sense, 
than its relations to the experience and daily observa- 
tion of mankind. Bulk, mass, and lifeless magnitude 
are not things of supreme importance, especially in a 
moral message designed for the spiritual recovery of 
a fallen world. The double purpose of a^ revealed 
truth is to restore man to his dominion over nature, 
and his allegiance to God. Whenever one is renounced, 
the other is lost, and the rebel against Divine autho- 
rity becomes the victim of some form of conscious or 
unconscious idolatry. But if the earth be held quite 
subordinate to the sun, simply because of its inferior 
bulk and weight, then man must be immensely inferior 
to the ground on which he treads, and the rhinoceros 
and hippopotamus, the oaks and cedars, the volcanoes 
and their streams of lava, must rank far above him 



314 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

in the scale of being. Pride tempts man, in the con- 
sciousness of mental power, to forget both his moral 
weakness and physical insignificance. Pantheistic fa- 
talism sets aside all moral distinctions, and degrades 
him into a mere passive atom in the vast machine 
of the universe. The Bible alone reconciles and har- 
monizes the contrasted truths of his actual condition; 
his physical insignificance, his moral frailty and corrup- 
tion, and the dignity of a nature framed in the image of 
God, and made to have dominion over all the works of 
his hands. 

The motions of the heavenly bodies depend on laws 
of force, which relate to quantity of matter and distance 
alone. Men of science have thus to make abstraction 
of their other qualities and relations, however important, 
to place themselves in thought somewhere in empty 
space, and to contemplate their motions, either from 
that fixed point, or with reference to that body which 
has the greatest mass, so that complex relations may 
be more simply conceived. Yet, even in abstract science, 
the same motive requires them sometimes to forsake 
these foreign points of view, and return to the earth 
again. In the lunar theory, the earth, and not the sun, 
is the centre to which the motions have to be referred. 
The sun is treated as revolving round it, only more 
slowly than the moon, and at a greater distance, and as 
deranging the lunar ellipse by this revolution. By no 
other means can the complex inquiry be duly sim- 
plified, and the lunar perturbations clearly ascertained. 
How much more, when the message relates entirely to 
the present duty and future hopes of mankind, must all 
the outward works of God be viewed in relation to this 
great object, and not with relation to mass and me- 
chanical force alone ! One soul is far nobler than millions 
on millions of cubic leagues of empty space ; and even 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 315 

if these are filled with nebulous mist, or this mist con- 
densed into a vast globe of fire, it can never rival the 
dignity of one rational and immortal creature, formed 
in the image of God, capable of knowing its Creator, 
and of enjoying his love for ever. 

The Bible, therefore, in describing physical changes 
with direct reference to the constant experience of 
mankind, or terrestrial observers, adopts the only course 
which agrees with the scope and purpose of a moral 
revelation. For it would violate its own character, and 
one of its own chief doctrines, unless the material works 
of God were treated as subordinate to the life, happi- 
ness, and moral welfare of mankind. The lesson, 
which it teaches on its first page, is the only sure 
antidote to every form of degrading idolatry — that man 
is the lord of nature, because he is the subject and child 
of the living God. 

II. The history of Creation, in Genesis, has given 
rise to more serious difficulty, from its alleged contrast 
with the lessons of geology. The discordant nature of 
the expositions offered by various Christian writers has 
been turned into an argument that no satisfactory solu- 
tion can be found. The spectacle, we are told, of able 
and conscientious writers employed on this impossible 
task, is painful and humiliating. They shuffle and 
stumble over their difficulties in a piteous manner, and 
do not breathe freely, till they return to the pure and 
open fields of science again. 

Now what is really painful and humiliating is that 
men, who still call themselves Christians, should venture 
to compare the first of God's messages, confirmed as 
Divine by Christ and his Apostles, to a stifling and 
mephitic cavern, from which we must escape with all 
speed, and take refuge with mammoths, mastodons, and 
the skeletons of extinct monsters, in order to breathe 



316 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

more freely, and avoid the risk of suffocation. It may 
be unwise to affirm that " geological investigations all 
prove the perfect harmony between Scripture and 
geology in reference to the history of creation." But 
the opposite assertion, that they are plainly irreconcil- 
able, is still more unreasonable on the side of science 
alone ; and adds the guilt of degrading the word of Glod 
into the presumptuous guesswork of some Hebrew im- 
postor, who dared to propound his own ignorant fancies 
as revelations from the Almighty. 

The statement in Genesis is to this effect ; that man 
was created, and placed on the earth, in Asia, in the 
garden of Eden, six or seven thousand years ago ; that 
his creation took place on the last of six successive days, 
during which the earth was changed from a dark, waste, 
and unformed condition, to a well-furnished habitation, 
by signal acts of creative energy; and that a seventh 
day followed, or a sabbath of rest, which Grod appointed 
for a lasting ordinance, because on this first seventh 
day he rested from all his work which he created and 
made. 

Now geological science discloses a long series of 
changes, through which our earth had passed before 
any traces are found of man's presence, and a distinct 
fauna and flora in each of these eras, amounting to many 
thousand extinct species. The question is, how these 
two statements are to be reconciled, or whether they 
are wholly incompatible. Some writers, as Hugh 
Miller, MacCausland, and Macdonald, expound the days 
of G-enesis to be long periods, in the order of which 
they trace some resemblance to the main outlines of 
geological discovery. A few others, as Dr. Pye Smith, 
restrict the whole narrative to local and limited changes 
in Central Asia alone ; which must strike every one, at 
once, as falling very short of the natural scope and force 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 317 

of the description. But many writers of eminence, as 
Chalmers, Buckland, Sedgwick, Dr. Kurtz, and Arch- 
deacon Pratt in his able pamphlet on Scripture and 
Science, hold that the days of Genesis are literal days ; 
that the ages of geology are passed over silently in the 
second verse ; and that the passage describes a great 
work of God, at the close of the Tertiary Period, by 
which our planet, after long ages, was finally prepared 
to be the habitation of man. This, I have no doubt, 
is the true and simple explanation. I shall now en- 
deavour to show that the objections brought against it 
in the Fifth Essay are entirely worthless, and that it 
is the assailant, and not the eminent writers assailed, 
who exhibits a strange confusion of thought, along with 
a lamentable determination to disparage the truth of 
Scripture, and set aside its Divine authority. 

1. The first and main question relates to the mode 
of representation employed in the sacred narrative. 
The Christian interpreters, who hold the day-periods 
or the literal days, agree in the view that the events 
are optically described, that is, as they would appear 
to a spectator placed on the surface of the earth. This 
is a principle common to their two expositions, which 
afterwards diverge from each other. And this, accord- 
ingly, is the first object of assault in the recent Essay. 
The objection runs as follows : — 

" Both these theories divest the Mosaic narrative of 
real accordance with fact ; both assume that appear- 
ances only, not facts, are described ; and that in riddles, 
which would never have been suspected to be such, 
had we not arrived at the truth from other sources. 
It would be difficult for controversialists to cede more 
completely the point in dispute, or to admit more 
explicitly that the Mosaic narrative does not represent 
correctly the history of the universe up to the time of 



318 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

man. At the same time the upholders of each theory 
see insuperable objections in detail to that of their 
allies, and do not pretend to any firm faith in their 
own. How can it be otherwise, when the task pro- 
posed is to evade the plain meaning of language, and 
to introduce obscurity into one of the simplest stories 
ever told, for the sake of making it accord with the 
complex system of the universe which modern science 
has unfolded ?" 

This whole objection, urged in so contemptuous 
a tone, rests plainly on that gross and fundamental 
error which has been already exposed. Appearances 
and facts are no real antithesis. Appearances are them- 
selves facts. They are precisely the facts, on which 
all science depends, as the materials from which it is 
derived, and to which it must return, in order to con- 
firm its discoveries, or yield any practical benefit to 
mankind. What is an eclipse but an appearance ? 
And yet what is the proof, above all others, by which 
modern astronomy has established its claim to be a 
real science, but the marvellous accuracy with which 
eclipses are foretold, even in their minutest details? 
Scientific speculation is like 'the balloon, which carries 
the observer into the upper sky, and enlarges the sphere 
of his vision. Phenomena are like the ground, from 
which it must ascend, and to which, after a short 
journey, it must soon return ; though with a knowledge 
enlarged beyond the limits of its first horizon, or per- 
haps alighting in a country never visited before. 

The Mosaic narrative, then, if it be a faithful record 
of appearances, is also a record of facts, and stands on 
a level, in scientific truthfulness, with the daily register 
of any modern observatory. For these consist entirely 
of appearances, whether of stars in the field of a tele- 
scope, or of the mercury in a barometer or a thermo- 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 319 

meter, or of the index in the anemometer or galvano- 
meter, or of the clouds in the sky, only noted down 
with mathematical precision. They are appearances 
from first to last. The flippant censure, aimed against 
the first chapter of the Bible, would sweep away in a 
moment the records of all our scientific observatories as 
equally false and faithless, and with them would destroy 
all the Materials on which science itself depends. 

The second falsehood in this objection is the asser- 
tion that the optical view of the Mosaic narrative turns 
a simple story into a riddle, the true meaning of which 
could never be suspected unless we gained it from 
other sources. This, it will be plain on a little reflec- 
tion, exactly reverses the real truth. Any other view 
of the passage would turn it into a riddle to the readers 
of all early ages of mankind ; and even to the great 
majority in our own days, who have not abused the 
discoveries of science so as to falsify the daily and 
hourly experiences of human life. 

There are four plain reasons why the narrative in 
the first of Genesis should be optically given, or 
describe changes as they would appear to a terres- 
trial observer. First, it is the constant and habitual 
language of daily life. Secondly, it is the equally inva- 
riable style of all our Scientific observations. Thirdly, 
it is the constant usage of all historians, without ex- 
ception, ancient and modern. Fourthly and lastly, it 
is the idiom of the Bible itself, in every other part of 
the sacred narrative. The claim of modern sciolists, 
that this chapter alone should be put in masquerade, 
and describe changes as they would appear from Sirius, 
or the centre of gravity of the sun and the planets, 
is just as reasonable as to require that it should 
have been written in some language used by angels, 
instead of being given, like all the rest of the Bible, 



320 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

in the language of men. The passage just quoted is 
more than a simple error. It is a direct and total 
inversion of the real truth. If it were wished to 
turn the first page of Scripture into a riddle, unin- 
telligible to all former ages, and hardly to be under- 
stood, except by one person in a thousand, even in our 
own days, we might frame it according to the recipe of 
these assailants of its truth. It would then run pretty 
nearly as follows : — 

" In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth. And first, God said, Let there be immense oceans 
of nebulous matter, scattered throughout all space ; and 
it was so. And God said, Let the nebulous matter 
condense slowly, under the law of universal gravitation ; 
and it was so. And God said, Let the central portion 
of each heap of mist condense into a sun, and the 
smaller portions condense into planets, and let the 
planets revolve each around its own sun ; and it was so. 
And God said, Let one planet of one sun condense into 
solid matter, and become liquid with intense heat ; and 
it was so. And God called the planet earth, and the 
central body it revolved around he called the sun ; and 
it was so. And God said, Let the earth, after long 
ages, cool down, till solid strata can be formed upon 
its surface ; and it was so. And God said, Let plants 
and living creatures grow upon the earth, and be de- 
stroyed again ; and it was so. And the period of their 
birth and destruction was a second day. And God 
said, Let ferns and other plants grow in great abundance, 
and then be buried, and reduced to coal in the crust 
of the earth ; and it was so. And the period of these 
plants was a third day. And God said, Let oolite and 
sandstone strata be formed, and other races of plants 
and animals be buried in them ; and it was so. And 
the period of these strata and the animals entombed in 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 321 

them was the fourth day. And God said, Let mighty 
lizards be created, and then destroyed and buried ; and 
it was so : and the lizard period was a fifth day, &c." 
Such an account of creation, whatever might be its 
measure of scientific accuracy, would have been an 
unmeaning riddle to all past generations of mankind. 
We should have a meagre summary of physical 
changes, wholly unintelligible to common readers, in- 
stead of the simplicity, beauty, and grandeur of a 
Divine message. 

It is urged, however, that if the description be one 
of appearances, it can teach us no truth whatever. If 
this remark were correct, the late expedition to Spain, 
to observe the total eclipse of the sun, though planned 
with so much care by astronomers of eminence, must 
have been an unmingied folly. They could only de- 
scribe appearances, not realities ; and what could science 
gain by all their observations ? Why, then, may not 
the Bible narrative be equally instructive, equally de- 
finite in its teaching, though it be a record of appear- 
ances alone ? Appearances are, in truth, the only 
materials from which every science is derived, and the 
medium by which alone it is applicable to the use of 
mankind. 

The objection, then, to the optical construction of 
the sacred narrative, that it deprives it of all definite 
meaning, and gives it a nonnatural sense, exactly reverses 
the real truth. The record of visible appearances is 
quite as definite, in its own nature, as a statement of 
physical causes, and is far easier to understand ; and no 
simple reader, in the age when Moses wrote, could 
attach any other meaning to the words than that which 
is so rashly condemned. 

" The difficulties arise," it is said, " for the first time, 
when we seek to import a meaning into language, which 

y 



322 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

it certainly never could have conveyed to those to whom 
it was originally addressed. Unless we go the length of 
supposing the simple account of the Hebrew cosmogonist 
to be a series of awkward equivocations, in which he 
attempted to give a representation widely different 
from the facts, without trespassing against literal truth, 
we can find no difficulty in interpreting his words." 
This remark is strictly true. But it justifies the inter- 
pretation it is supposed to condemn, and condemns that 
which it is supposed to justify. The meaning of light, 
to the early Hebrew, could not be the undulations of a 
subtle ether, diffused through infinite space, but simply 
a state of the earth, air, and sky, in which objects were 
clearly visible to the senses of men. The sun, moon, 
and stars, to the same readers, could never be supposed 
to mean immense balls of solid matter, luminous, or non- 
luminous, floating at large in the depths of space, but 
visible discs of light, seen daily revolving through the 
sky. The whole force, then, of this first objection 
to the sacred narrative, is due simply to a denatu- 
ralization of some minds, through dwelling amidst the 
mechanical relations of physical astronomy, till they 
reverse the laws of criticism and the facts of history, 
and put light for darkness, and darkness for light, in 
their attempt to fasten error and contradiction on the 
word of God. 

2. The second maxim, implied in that view of the 
narrative, which retains the literal days, and accepts also 
the facts of geology, is the distinctness of the absolute 
creation in the first verse from the six days of creation 
that follow. The result, indeed, is much the same, if we 
suppose the Hebrew word bara to be taken in a looser 
sense, and that the first verse is merely a summary of 
the whole account that is afterwards given. On this 
view nothing whatever would be said of the absolute 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 323 

formation of matter, but the whole would begin with 
the chaos or confusion before the first day. 

Assuming, however, B that the first verse relates to 
the absolute beginning of creation, or the first origin 
of things, an objection is started from the mention of 
the heaverfe on the second day. It is inferred that 
" during those indefinite ages there was no sky, no 
local habitation for the sun, moon, and stars, even 
supposing them to have been included in the original 
material." 

This difficulty would be real, if the heavens in Scrip- 
ture meant always the lower firmament alone. But 
this is quite untrue. The apostle speaks of being 
caught up into " the third heaven," which certainly 
was not the region of the clouds. Hence, although the 
lowest heavens were made on the second day, the first 
verse may still retain a very clear and definite meaning. 
The first heaven is that of sense, or the visible fir- 
mament. The second heaven is that of science and 
philosophy, or the depths of the starry universe. The 
third heaven is that of faith and spiritual vision, or that 
immediate unveiling of the Divine presence to pure 
and sinless spirits, which answers to the holy of holies 
in the Jewish temple. The opening words of the Bible, 
then, may refer immediately to the third heavens of 
glory, and the heavens of sidereal astronomy ; while the 
mention of the lower heavens, or visible arch of the 
sky, comes in its natural place, in connection with 
terrestrial and atmospheric changes, among the steps by 
which our earth was prepared to be the dwelling of 
man. 

3. A third principle, involved in this view of the 
passage, when compared with the facts of geology, is 
that the darkness and confusion in the second verse 
refers to a state which intervened between the Tertiary 

y 2 



324 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and Human period. And here a double objection is 
urged. First, on the authority of Hugh Miller, it is 
affirmed that such a break " is by no means supported 
by geological phenomena, and is now rejected by all 
geologists whose authority is valuable." And next, it 
is said that such a construction falls short of the natural 
meaning of the text, and reduces the third verse from a | 
noble description, the admiration of ages, to a pitiful 
caput mortuum of empty verbiage. 

The course of thought pursued in the Fifth Essay, in 
its laboured assault on the truth of Scripture, is here 
singularly perplexed and illogical. Dr. Chalmers and 
Hugh Miller, and all others who accept either the view 
of literal days or day-periods, agree in affirming that 
the optical construction of the narrative, with reference 
to a human observer, is the only one historically natural, 
or critically possible. This their unanimous consent 
is cast aside on the strength of naked assertions, which 
directly reverse the manifest truth, the experience of 
every observatory, and the constant usage of the whole 
Bible. Both these classes of writers agree in the firm 
conviction that the narrative in Genesis and the facts 
of science do agree, though they vary in their concep- 
tion of the precise nature of their agreement. This 
their consent is equally cast aside, as the effect of 
scientific ignorance or of theological prejudice, and no 
scruples either of modesty or of piety lessen the con- 
fidence with which their consenting judgment is de- 
nounced and condemned. But Hugh Miller, after 
holding once the view of literal days, renounced it for 
that of day-periods, on the ground that geology allows 
of no gap or break between the Tertiary and Human 
periods. His argument is founded on eight animals, 
and two kinds of shells, which he believed to be common 
to the two eras. On the other hand M. D'Orbigny, in 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 323 

a work on fossil geology, of which a summary is given 
in two volumes of ' Lardner's Museum of Science/ and 
which includes an examination of eighteen thousand 
species of radiata and mollusca alone, has deduced con- 
clusions diametrically opposite. He shews that there 
are twenty-nine eras, in each of which the genera 
are partly the same as in the preceding one, and partly 
different ; but that the species, except only one or two 
per cent, in a few cases, are all distinct, and imply a 
new creation. Even in respect of genera, the contrast 
between the Human and Tertiary periods is the widest 
of the whole (these two forming, in Hugh Miller's 
theory, part of the same day), since only five hundred 
and forty are old genera, or common to the Tertiary, 
and one thousand three hundred and twenty-seven are 
new. But according to the same writer the species are 
entirely new, and " the entire fauna and flora of the 
last Tertiary period were destroyed." 

In the ' Christian Observer,' Jan. 1858, this argu- 
ment has been developed, in disproof of the funda- 
mental assertion on which Hugh Miller's theory 
depends. The essayist quotes a reference to it in 
Archdeacon Pratt's able pamphlet on Scripture and 
Science, in which he speaks of it as conclusive, and 
gives a summary of the facts and the necessary infer- 
ence to which they lead. He does this, however, 
merely to shew " the trenchant manner in which theo- 
logical geologists overthrow one another's theories," 
and carefully abstains from touching either the facts or 
the argument. On the contrary, he proceeds to observe 
that " Hugh Miller was perfectly aware of the difficulty 
involved in his view of the question," and proceeds to 
give the details of his theory ; when those details have 
nothing whatever to do with the argument thus dis- 
missed ; and, instead of Mr. Miller being aware of the 



326 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

difficulty, his theory is based on a conclusion drawn 
from the supposed sameness of eight species, in direct 
opposition to this large induction of M. D'Orbigny from 
twenty-nine successive eras, and nearly twenty thou- 
sand species; and from eighteen hundred genera in 
the Human and Tertiary periods alone. What is still 
more strange in the presence ' of such an extract, Hugh 
Miller's assertion, thus largely disproved, is accepted 
for a sufficient proof of the untenability of the theory 
of Chalmers, and that its abandonment was " not 
without the compulsion of irresistible evidence ;" and. 
that the view which results from the large induction 
of M. D'Orbigny, after cataloguing twenty thousand 
species, and which is summed up in two volumes of the 
' Museum of Science,' as the latest and ripest conclusion 
of geology " is now rejected by all geologists whose 
authority is valuable." 

Such a style of argument, where the truth of Scrip- 
ture is in question, can hardly be too strongly con- 
demned. It betrays, if not a settled purpose to damage 
the authority of the Bible by any artifice of special 
pleading, at least a total incapacity to discern the really 
vital points of the controversy, the true limits of autho- 
rity, and the results of a wide and genuine induction 
of geological evidence. All that is true and beautiful 
in Hugh Miller's writings is cast aside ; and a solitary 
error, since disproved by the evidence of thirty eras 
and twenty thousand species, is stolen from him, and 
dipped in poison, that it may inflict a deadly wound on 
the faith which was dearest to his heart. 

Let us now inquire whether the other objection has 
more weight. Does this view reduce a noble and sub- 
lime description to a " a pitiful caput mortuum of empty 
verbiage ?" It supposes that, after the Tertiary period, 
and by the convulsion which gave birth to the moun- 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 327 

tain-chains of the Alps and Andes, our planet was 
wrapped in a sea of vapour, and buried for a long 
period in midnight and impenetrable gloom. This 
chaos, optically and physically complete, it assumes to 
be the starting-point of the inspired description. After 
an unknown period of total darkness " upon the face of 
the deep," light broke out suddenly, on this first day, 
at God's command, over the whole surface of the globe. 
Now it is self-evident that such a fact is all that Moses 
and his contemporaries, and all readers of the Penta- 
teuch down to our own days, could naturally or reason- 
ably understand by the words. They could never 
suppose it to mean the creation of a luminiferous ether, 
filling infinite space, nor the commencement of certain 
undulations, regulated by unknown mechanical laws. 
The light has distinct reference to the previous dark- 
ness. The darkness was " upon the face of the deep," 
and the deep is no synonym for infinite space, but for 
the earth's surface, while mainly covered with water, 
before the dry land appeared. The instantaneous 
breaking forth of light over our world, where all before 
had been wrapped in utter gloom, is one of the noblest 
images which can enter the human mind; and those 
who can call it empty verbiage seem to need themselves 
a similar process of mental illumination. 

4. The omission of the long eras of geology, which 
the same view of the passage implies, can furnish no 
real objection to its truth. On the contrary, it seems 
to result inevitably from the character of this Divine 
message. It describes a brief work of God's almighty 
power, by which our planet was fitted to be the abode 
of man. All the objects which man sees around him 
are referred in it to their Divine Author. His power 
is shown in the swift completion of so great a work, his 
wisdom in its orderly progress ; and a moral character 



328 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

is infused into the whole, when six days of creative 
energy are seen to be followed by the Divine sabbath 
of rest, a precedent for the use of mankind in every 
later age. Nothing is wanting, nothing superfluous. 
A description of the earth's fluid nucleus, of primary 
rocks, of the flora of the coal measures, or of the extinct 
animals of the Secondary and Tertiary periods, would 
have been only a strange and unnatural excrescence in 
such an early message from God to man. 

5. The objection to this view, from the break which 
it requires, has been thus stated. 

" The hypothesis was first promulgated at a time 
when the gradual and regular formation of the earth's 
strata was not seen or admitted so clearly as it is now. 
Geologists were more disposed to believe in great 
catastrophes. Buckland's theory supposes that previous 
to the appearance of the present races of animals and 
vegetables there was a great gap in the globe's history ; j 
that the earth was completely depopulated, as well of 
marine as land animals, and that the creation of all 
existing plants and animals was coeval with that of 
man. This theory is by no means supported by geolo- 
gical phenomena, and is now, we suppose, rejected by 
all geologists, whose authority is valuable." 

Now let us compare with this positive assertion the 
statement of Dr. Lardner (' Museum of Science,' xi, 71. 
1856), based on the labours of Murchison and D'Or- 
bigny. 

" The anticipations of Sir R, Murchison have been 
more than realized by the subsequent researches of 
M. D'Orbigny, founded on his own observations, which 
extended over a large portion of the New as well as 
Old World ; and upon the entire mass of facts con- 
nected with the analyses of the crust of the earth, col- 
lected by th<* observations of the most eminent geolo- 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 329 

gists in all parts of the world. It appears from these 
researches that, during the long periods of geological 
time, from the first appearance of organized life on the 
globe to the period when the human race and its con- 
temporaneous tribes were called into existence, the 
world was peopled by a series of animal and vegetable 
kingdoms, which were successively destroyed by violent 
convulsions of the crust, which produced as many 
devastating deluges. The remains of each of these 
ancient creatures are deposited in a series of layers; 
and it has been found that each successive animal 
kingdom was composed of its own peculiar species, 
which did not appear in any posterior or succeeding 
creation, but that genera once created were frequently 
revived in succeeding periods ; that many of these 
genera, however, became extinct long before the human 
period. 

" By careful analyses of the strata and the animal 
remains, geologists have ascertained with a high degree 
of probability, if not with absolute moral certainty, 
that subsequently to the first appearance of the forms 
of animal life, which took place after the fourth great 
convulsion of our globe, there were at least twenty- 
eight successive convulsions of a like nature, each of 
which was attended with the complete destruction of 
the animals and plants which existed on the globe. 
In fine, after the latest of these catastrophes, when 
the last strata of the Tertiary period were deposited, 
the most recent exertion of Creative Power took place, and 
the globe was peopled with the tribes which now inhabit it, 
including the human race. 

" The disruption of the earth's crust, through which 
the chain of the great Alps was forced up to its present 
elevation, which, according to M. D'Orbigny was simul- 
taneous with that which forced up the Chilian Andes, 



330 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

a chain which extends over three thousand miles of the 
western continent, terminated the Tertiary age, and 
preceded immediately the creation of the human race 
and its concomitant tribes. The waters of the seas 
and oceans, lifted from their beds by this immense per- 
turbation, swept over the continents with irresistible 
force, destroying the entire fauna and flora of the last 
Tertiary period, and burying its ruins in the deposits 
that ensued. By this dislocation, Europe underwent 
a complete change of form. Secondary effects followed, 
which have left their traces on every part of the earth's 
surface. When the seas had settled into their new 
beds, and the outlines of the land were permanently 
defined, the latest and greatest act of creation was ac- 
complished, by clothing the earth with the vegetation 
that now covers it, peopling the land and water with 
the animal tribes which now exist, and calling into 
being the human race." (xii. p. 552.) 

It is clear, from this comparison, that the statement 
in the objection exactly reverses the real truth with 
regard to the latest conclusions of geology. With the 
failure of its foundation, the whole fabric of sceptical 
inference reared upon it falls at once into ruins. 

6. But another objection has been drawn from the 
events of the fourth day ; though in reality it is only 
the first difficulty with regard to the optical style of 
the narrative, in one special application. " What," it is 
asked, " were the new relations which the heavenly 
bodies assumed to the newly modified earth, and to 
the human race ? They had marked out seasons, days, 
and years, and given light for ages before to the earth, 
and to the animals which preceded man as its inha- 
bitants." 

The reply is evident. With those previous ages 
and their condition, and the plants and animals that 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 331 

lived in them, man and his contemporaries had no more 
to do than if their theatre had been some wholly 
different world. It was out of the ruins of these 
former creations that the present arose. To man him- 
self, or any of the creatures living on the earth, and 
which have enjoyed the sunshine to the present hour, 
that fourth day was the first on which sun, or moon, or 
stars appeared. It was the earliest of those appearances 
to the eyes of the present creation, which have lasted to 
this day's sunrise, or to the shining of the stars this 
night in the firmament of heaven. 

If any doubt could remain of the adequacy of this 
explanation, it will be removed at once by the com- 
parison of other passages in the word of God. Thus 
we read in St. Peter of the world before the flood, 
that " the heavens and earth, which were of old, being 
overflowed with water, perished ; but the heavens and 
earth which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto 
fire." Here it is plain that the present heavens and 
earth are described as distinct from those before the 
flood, and succeeding in their room. This plainly 
cannot refer to the substance of the earth, or of the 
heavenly bodies, but to their relations to the senses of 
man ; so that the vault of the sky, and the surface 
of the earth, are constantly compared to a robe or 
vesture which may be rolled away. The interpreta- 
tion, then, which refers Genesis i. 14-19 to the solid 
globes of the sun, the moon, and the stars, as they 
exist in space, and hence infers a contradiction between 
the Bible and modern science, does no less violence to 
the rules of sound criticism than to the reverence due 
to the word of God. 

7. Another supposed contradiction to the truths of 
science has been found in the mention of the firma- 
ment. The word, in Hebrew, means simply an ex- 



I 



332 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

panse. But it is urged that the context requires us 
to admit that the writer viewed this expanse as a solid 
vault, since it is said elsewhere to have pillars, founda- 
tions, doors, and windows; and here separates waters 
which are above from those which are below. To insist 
on the derivation, it is said, is mere quibbling, in the 
face of these clear proofs that the Bible ascribes to it a 
real solidity. 

There is something really amazing in the self-con- 
fidence with which such charges of ignorance and folly 
are brought against the sacred writers. A little modesty 
and common sense would have shown that an argu- 
ment which proves too much proves nothing, and that 
the sacred writers could never have thought that rain 
came down, literally, through square oj^enings in a solid 
vault of the sky ; nor that the sun, moon, and stars, if 
set in a solid vault, supported by pillars, could revolve 
daily from east to west, and reappear in the east again. 
The same passage of noble poetry which tells us, in mag- 
nifying the power of God, that " the pillars of heaven 
tremble and are astonished at his reproof;" also tells 
us that " He stretcheth out the north over the empty 
space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." If one 
phrase, taken alone, seems to imply solid supports, the 
other seems just as plainly to anticipate the views of 
modern science, and represents our world as self-sup- 
ported in empty space. If windows are ascribed to 
heaven in one place, as a figure to represent the 
descent of rain from above, their existence seems just 
as strongly denied in another. " If the Lord would 
make windows in heaven, might this thing be ?" 
Once admit the principle that all these phrases are 
vivid metaphors, to express great truths which were 
evident to the senses of mankind, and all is consistent, 
easy, and natural. The foundations of the earth, the 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 333 

pillars of the sky, denote simply the firmness and stead- 
fastness of these two main objects of the knowledge of 
man, the wide landscape spread around him, and the 
blue vault everywhere above his head. The opening 
of the windows of heaven denotes the descent of rain 
from that upper sky, where no water could before be 
seen to exist, and is a metaphor plainly drawn from 
the skylights of some human building. The placing 
of the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament has no 
reference to a solid structure, in which case they would 
be. fixed and immoveable, but to their permanent mani- 
festation, as moving daily through the azure vault of 
the heaven. 

The only phrase which gives the least countenance to 
the gross, material view of the firmament, a view which 
plainly is refuted, rather than confirmed, by the etymo- 
logy, is the mention of the waters above and below it, 
which it separates from each other. But a very little 
patient thought will suggest at once the true meaning. 
The blue vault or expanse is a result relative to human 
vision. Its existence depends on the mutual relation 
of the eyes of men and animals, and the optical pro- 
perties of the earth's atmosphere, through which alone 
we obtain a knowledge of objects beyond the reach of 
our other senses. It is, in short, the sensible limit 
between the visible and the invisible. All water, then, 
which is visible to the senses, either in the seas or in 
the clouds, is described as being under the firmament ; 
and all which is invisible and concealed from the senses, 
with equal propriety of phrase, is described as above 
the firmament. It is out of this state of invisibility that 
it reappears continually in rain, to fertilize the earth. 
This change from the invisible to the visible, is the open- 
ing of the windows of heaven, by which the waters above 
the firmament descend and mingle with those below. 



334 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

The relation, then, between the latest conclusions 
of modern science, and the Bible history of creation, 
is one of independent truth, but of perfect harmony. 
Science reveals a long series of changes, once unsus- 
pected, by which the strata of our planet were formed, 
and a succession of nearly thirty vegetable and animal 
creations, which were suited, no doubt, to the state 
of the earth in which they appeared, but were suc- 
cessively destroyed by volcanic convulsions on the 
largest scale, by which new mountain chains rose into 
being. The most complete separation of species, an 
immense preponderance of new genera, and the rise of 
the most stupendous mountains — the Alps and Andes, 
separate the last of these from the present human 
creation. Science proves that, before man appeared, 
the earth must have been waste and desolate ; all pre- 
vious forms of life destroyed and entombed ; and though 
its strata might be completed, its whole surface was 
covered with mighty inundations, and its atmosphere 
loaded with the vapour from the seas and oceans, which 
such a vast volcanic eruption could not fail to send up 
in immense and enormous volumes, wrapping the whole 
surface of the planet, perhaps for years or centuries, 
in thick impenetrable darkness. But science, while 
it may reveal the fact that man and existing plants 
and animals are contemporary in the geological sense, 
is far too dim-sighted to disclose the times, the order, 
and the details, of that last creation in which all these 
had their birth. For anything which its most skilful 
interpreters can tell us, this work might have lasted 
through thousands of years, or Almighty Power might 
have compressed it into a single day. It is here that 
the word of God steps in, and beginning its narrative 
with that creation which now exists, and with which 
alone man has anything to do, at least until these 



THE BIBLE AND MODEKN SCIENCE. 335 

recent discoveries were disentombed, reveals to us 
the order, the swift fulfilment, and the moral grandeur 
of this great work of Grod. The fourth commandment 
pronounced on Sinai by the lips of Jehovah himself, 
gives us the sublime fact, and its application to the 
instruction and guidance of mankind. " Six days shalt 
thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day is 
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. For in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in 
them is, and rested the seventh day ; wherefore the 
Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it." 1 

1 Note E. Genesis and Geology, 



336 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE, CONTINUED. 

In the previous chapter a brief reply has been offered 
to modern arguments against the inspiration and autho- 
rity of the Bible, from its supposed contradiction to 
the truths of astronomy and geology. The other topics, 
the History of the Flood, the Unity of the Human 
Race, and the conclusions of Ethnology, have not been 
so prominent in the most recent attacks, and their 
treatment would lead too far from the main purpose 
of the present work. But it seems desirable to clear 
up some difficulties of a more general kind ; and to 
point out the line of truth and wisdom, between that 
superstitious abuse of Scripture, which leads to " a 
phantastical science," and that undue confidence in im- 
perfect science, and contempt for the authority of the 
Divine oracles, which tends inevitably to "an heretical 
religion." 

The Bible, in the view of the Christian Church, con- 
sists of a series of inspired records, or messages from 
God to mankind. " All Scripture is given by inspira- 
tion of God." It " cannot be broken." It is God 
himself who " spake in time past to the fathers by the 
prophets." It is the Holy Ghost, who spake by Moses, 
by David, by Isaiah. " Prophecy came not at any time 
by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake, being 
moved or borne along by the Holy Ghost." It is " the 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 



337 



Lord God of the holy prophets " by whom these various 
messages of Divine truth were given to men. The 
Son of God himself suffered on the cross " that the 
Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." And he 
has told us himself that "it is easier for heaven and 
earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to 
fail." 

Such statements as these, from the lips of the Saviour 
and his Apostles, might be expected to secure the 
Scriptures from imputations of contradiction, error, and 
falsehood, at least on the part of those who profess to 
be disciples of Christ. They do not require us to 
believe that these messages are absolutely perfect, 
without the least speck or flaw, in the form in which thev 
reaeh the hands of every individual, after translation 
and transcription have been at work for thousands of 
years. They do not, perhaps, require us to decide how 
near to the fountain-head some minute, microscopical 
faults, from the infirmity of copyists or amanuenses, may 
have been permitted to come. But they do seem clearly 
to imply that the gift was perfect, and free from all error, 

first communicated from the God of truth to His chosen 
messengers, or curiously and wisely fashioned, by the 
use of their faculties, within their minds, whether in 
history, precept, doctrine, devotion, or spiritual medita- 
tion. The whole, therefore, comes to us, plainly stamped 
with a Divine authority. And this authority must ex- 
tend to every jot and tittle of its contents, until some 
adequate evidence, external or internal, shews it to be 
a fault of translation or transmission ; a slight flaw, in 
whatever way occasioned, which has become attached to 
the original and Divinely perfect message. 

The Bible, again, is marked throughout by the unity 
of a great moral purpose. Its design is not to interfere 
with the slow and silent progress of natural science, but 






338 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 



to make sinners wise unto salvation. It was written for 
the use of every age from the time when its earliest 
messages were given, and not to gratify the scientific 
curiosity of our own busy generation. A treatise on 
astronomy, geology, chemistry, electricity, or botany, 
would evidently be quite out of place in these lively 
oracles of God. They would, by such an excrescence, 
renounce in part their own true character, and descend 
from their sacred height into a lower sphere. We have 
no right to expect in them a premature revelation of 
the law of gravitation, and the Newtonian theory of the 
heavens, or of the undulatory theory of light, or of the 
chemical constitution of matter, or a thousand other 
natural truths, which the progress of science may 
perhaps, in future ages, make known to men. The 
allusions in Scripture to all these subjects, we might 
reasonably infer, would be incidental, secondary, and 
collateral. 

On the other hand, the Bible is not a message to 
pure, disembodied spirits ; but is addressed to man in 
his actual character, as a being composed of body and 
soul, born in the weakness of infancy, placed in the 
midst of this lower, visible creation, and trained through \ 
his senses to the knowledge of himself, of nature and of 
God. A revelation designed for such a being must 
inevitably include within it many facts, that belong to 
almost every field of scientific inquiry. All nature 
must be laid under contribution, like the treasures of 
Egypt for the tabernacle, to form this marvellous and 
complicated structure of heavenly wisdom. Facts which 
belong to geography, chronology, botany, zoology, 
astronomy, civil legislation, and political history, meet 
us, and must be expected to meet us, in almost every 
page of the sacred narrative. 

These simple remarks are enough to clear away two 



THE BIBLE AND MODEEN SCIENCE. 339 

great errors, on opposite sides, by which Christian 
faith has been clouded with a dangerous scepticism, 
or loaded with a superstitious excrescence. They shew 
at once how vain must be the attempt to maintain a 
doctrinal authority in Scripture, and still to impute 
to it a merely human character, wherever it touches on 
questions of natural science. For the two elements 
are blended throughout no less intimately, than body 
and soul are united in man himself. Let us take for 
instance, the leading truth of Christianity, the resur- 
rection of our Lord. No truth can be more central to 
the revelation, or more intensely spiritual in its true 
significance. Yet it contains points of intimate con- 
nection with a dozen different sciences. It is a geo- 
graphical truth ; for he rose from the tomb at Calvary, 
and ascended from Olivet. It is a chronological truth ; 
for he rose the third day, during the procuratorship 
of Pontius Pilate, and on that first day of the week, 
which begins the long, unbroken series of Christian 
sabbaths. It is a physiological truth ; for the body 
which was laid in the grave, was raised on the third 
day, before it had seen corruption. It is connected 
with a truth of botany ; for that sacred body had been 
embalmed with myrrh and aloes, a hundred pounds in 
weight. It is a truth of political history ; for cruci- 
fixion was a Eoman and not a Jewish punishment, and 
a Jewish watch, by permission of a Eoman governor, 
had been set over the tomb. It is connected with im- 
portant facts of mental philosophy ; for the disciples 
believed not for joy, and wondered. It is connected 
equally with the science of jurisprudence, and the laws 
of evidence ; for he appeared openly, " not to all the 
people, but to witnesses chosen before of Grod, who did 
eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." 
And hence the idea of retaining the authority of the 

z 2 



340 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Bible, as in any sense Divine, and making an exception 
for parts into which there enters some scientific element, 
is utterly delusive and impracticable. The doctrines 
and the facts, the precepts and the histories, are joined 
inseparably by the Spirit of God himself; and man, 
with his most laborious efforts, cannot put them asunder. 
Deny the authority of the facts, and you destroy the 
whole revelation. 

But the same truths will serve equally to shut out 
an opposite error, which would make the Bible, because 
of its Divine origin, a substitute for the researches of 
human science, and would strive to extract a complete 
system of natural philosophy from its pages. The 
Bible, from its nature as a true and Divine history, 
must contain valuable materials for many branches of 
science, but not the sciences themselves. In speaking 
of natural objects, it deals with facts, patent to the I 
senses of men, and not with secret causes that lie hidden 
from general view. It speaks of earthquakes, but not 
of the volcanic heavings of a fluid nucleus, or of the 
internal combustion out of which they may arise. It 
speaks of sunrise and sunset, of the waxing and waning 
of the moon, but not of the earth's revolution, or the 
laws that guide the motion of our satellite, and deter- 
mine its phases. It speaks of hail mingled with fire, 
sent from heaven, but propounds no theory of elec- 
tricity to account for the violence of the thunderstorm, 
and the strange contrast of heat and cold in the same 
phenomenon. It alludes to trees and plants, from the 
cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall ; but no 
formal classification of them, as endogens and exogens, 
or in any other way, is found in its pages. Thus, while 
it furnishes rich materials, in various ways, to men of 
science, it speaks a language intelligible to all mankind. 
It is mere folly and ignorance to tax the Scriptures 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 341 

with falsehood because of this popular character, which 
is one mark of their Divine wisdom. The contrast 
between scientific and popular statements is not a 
contrast between truth and falsehood; but between 
truth in its simpler and alphabetic forms, which lie 
within the reach of a child, and in those deeper com- 
binations which lie remote from the surface, and are 
gradually disclosed by a patient induction from mul- 
tiplied observations and experiments. Every sunrise 
and sunset, observed in every spot on the earth's 
surface, is a separate truth of astronomical science, no 
less than material for poetical description. But the re- 
volution of the earth on its axis is a wider and more com- 
prehensive truth, which sums up and explains thousands 
of sunsets in ten thousand spots on the surface of the 
earth, and reveals, with scientific accuracy, the order 
and interval of their succession from day to day. It is 
thus equally an error to deny that the Scriptures 
furnish, on Divine authority, facts which constitute the 
partial materials for various branches of natural science ; 
\ or to suppose that their statements embody and define 
any scientific theory, and supersede the labours of 
patient induction by a physical theory of nature re- 
vealed from heaven. 

Another form, in which the attempt has been made 
to restrict the authority of Scripture, is by exempting 
from the range of Divine revelation all those depart- 
ments of truth "for the discovery of which he has 
faculties specially provided by his Creator." A general 
charge of ignorance or negligence has been brought 
against the whole body of Christian divines, because 
they have overlooked this great axiom, or adopted it 
with such limitations as destroy its value. This doctrine 
is the starting-point of the Essay on the Mosaic Cos- 
mogony, and the goal to which it returns. Under its 



342 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

friendly guidance, the Divine record of creation, to 
which the Son of Grod appealed with holy reverence, is 
to resume the dignity and value which it had lost while 
esteemed to be the word of Grod, by ranking as the 
speculation of some Hebrew sciolist, who had never 
learned the modesty of modern science, 'and made a 
bold, but mistaken guess at the origin of the world. 
Men have regarded it, for ages, as the inspired truth of 
Grod ; but it is cheering to be assured, that their respect 
for it need not be in the least diminished, when they 
come to regard it as the blind and ignorant conjecture 
of some unknown pretender to Divine communications. 
Let us see, first, how far this maxim will carry us on 
the road of unbelief. We have the faculty of memory, 
specially provided to teach us the facts of history, or of 
human testimony. Therefore no facts of history can be 
included in a Divine message. We have the faculty of 
imagination, specially provided to make us capable of 
poetic feeling and thought. Therefore poetry and its 
high imagery must be excluded also. We have a 
conscience, designed and adapted to teach us moral 
truths. Therefore a Divine revelation must pretend to 
teach no morality. We have reason and judgment, 
specially designed and adapted to combine facts and 
truths together, and derive inferences from their union. 
Therefore all reason and argument, and all appeals to 
the understanding, must be banished from the messages 
of Grod. By the moral sense, combined with the faculty 
of reason, we can gain some general conceptions of the 
First Cause and his moral attributes. Therefore the 
knowledge of Grod himself, his nature, attributes, and 
will, must form no part of Divine revelation. The 
principle, so highly praised, is thus a simple and effec- 
tual expedient for getting rid of all revelation whatever, 
by leaving it no single subject, within the range and 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 343 

compass of the human faculties, which it is permitted to 
reveal. 

The maxim, then, which theologians are blamed for 
being slow to receive, is grossly and manifestly absurd. 
No truth can possibly be revealed, unless there be a 
faculty fitted to receive the revelation. A landscape 
can be unveiled only to the seeing eye, and melodies 
of music only made known to the hearing ear. Where 
the faculties have been obscured by sin, the work of 
revelation may be twofold, and include the opening of 
blind eyes, and the unstopping of deaf ears, as well as 
the exhibition of visions of heavenly truth, or melo- 
dious utterances of Divine love. But a faculty which 
is fitted to receive, and if to receive, then by diligence 
and care to discover, moral and spiritual truth, is not a 
substitute which excludes Divine revelation, but the 
previous condition on which its possibility depends. 

But the context in which this maxim appears, and the 
purpose to which it has been applied, makes its error 
doubly conspicuous. It is used to justify the degrada- 
tion of the first chapter of Genesis from a Divine message 
into a mere human speculation. Now if there be one 
part of the Bible history which is beyond the reach of 
a merely human knowledge, it must be a record of 
the steps of creation before the first existence of man. 
All later events named in the Bible might have been 
handed down, without a Divine inspiration, by the 
ordinary processes of human tradition. Here alone such 
a tradition was plainly impossible. Even modern science 
must here be completely at fault. Astronomers might 
sooner be able to give us a chart of the bays and islands 
of the lost Pleiad, or of a planet of Sirius, than geologists, 
by their own researches, to recount in detail the events 
of the six natural days which immediately preceded the 
first appearance of man on the face of the globe. Yet 



344 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

this is the chapter out of the whole Bible, which it has 
been laboured to deprive of a Divine origin, on the plea 
that what man can learn by his unaided faculties can 
never be the object of supernatural revelation. 

Let us examine the maxim more closely. It is not 
uncommon, with Christian writers, to assume a wide 
contrast between truths which man might learn without 
Divine communication, and those for which it is indis- 
pensably required. They do not restrict the authority 
of the Bible to truths of the second class alone ; but 
still, it is their presence on which the value of the 
gift is supposed mainly to depend. The same contrast, 
however, has been borrowed by sceptical writers, and 
worked out on its negative side. It then becomes a 
powerful engine to destroy the authority of revealed 
religion. Every fact of history and every moral truth, 
since it might be learned by the right use of our natural 
powers, is exempted from the province of revelation. 
Nothing is left to revealed religion but a few mysterious 
doctrines, which are to be blindly received, because it is 
impossible to understand them, and they are unfit, in 
their own nature, for any exercise of the human eon- 
science or reason. 

It will be found, I think, on closer reflection, that 
there is no ground for this line of rigid demarcation. 
All truth is mutually related and harmonious. In the 
mind of Omniscient Wisdom, all things past, present, and 
future, and all truths of every kind, must be united in 
one vast scheme of Providence, in which there is no 
flaw. " He is the Rock, his work is perfect." Every 
reasonable creature, whose powers are not impaired by 
sin, has some partial knowledge of this mighty scheme, 
though it is only like a drop in an immeasurable ocean. 
But he has also a capacity of progress. He can observe 
more and more, Jbimself ; and he can learn more and 



THE BIBLE AND MODEEN SCIENCE. 345 

more from the testimony of other observers. He can 
combine, more and more fully, these elements of know- 
ledge, and thus discover slowly the laws of Providence, 
both in the natural and spiritual world. There seems 
to be no essential separation between truths attainable 
in course of time by the use of our natural faculties, 
and others quite unattainable. But the contrast is 
almost infinite, in the degree of facility with which par- 
ticular truths may be learned by observation alone, by 
the help of human testimony, or by direct revelations 
from the Fountain of all truth and wisdom. 

Let us take, for example, the science of astronomy. 
A single student, if his life were indefinitely prolonged, 
might multiply his observations, perfect his instruments, 
and enlarge his attainments in analysis, till the dis- 
coveries of thousands had all been equalled and sur- 
passed by himself alone. He might thus amass larger 
and more exact materials than we now possess, and 
combine them by a profound analysis which should 
throw the Principia and Mecanique Celeste, and the 
labours of Plana, Struve, Airy, Herschel, Adams, and 
Leverrier, completely into the shade. But before this 
pinnacle could possibly be reached,, long, interminable 
ages must have rolled away. Facts, which he might 
have learned in a moment from the simple testimony of 
another observer, would have become immensely remote, 
before he could re-discover them, if at all, as inferences 
from his own discoveries and observations. 

Now this, which is true of astronomy, must be still 
more true of our human knowledge of the character, 
works, and ways of God. Even apart from the effects 
of sin, our lifetime is far too short for any large advance, 
by our own unaided wisdom, in a science so glorious. 
This knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it is high, and 
we cannot attain unto it. The discoveries of a lifetime 



346 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

would be the merest atom in this boundless ocean of 
truth. Even the help of our fellow-men could do only 
a very little to facilitate our progress in this pathway 
towards clearer light. But if our Maker himself were 
to condescend to become our Teacher, and out of the 
stores of his infinite wisdom to select the truths most 
helpful to our progress, and still within the range of 
our actual capacity, then would our progress be far 
more rapid and easy. In the humble use of this Divine 
aid, we might soon leave far behind us, in the low and 
misty valley, those who had never received, or who 
had neglected and despised it, and travel, with swift 
and hopeful steps, up the mountain side towards the 
summit of the everlasting hills. 

But the. debasing influence of sin on the human 
faculties renders this contrast between attainments 
possible in the use of natural powers alone, and by the 
aid of Divine revelation, far more complete. Men need 
not only to be taught, but to be made willing to learn. 
It is not enough that a wide landscape of heavenly truth 
is spread out before them. The eye of the soul must 
undergo a healing process, before they can gaze upon it 
undazzled, and without confusion. When the last 
glorious vision was revealed to the beloved Daniel, its 
brightness overwhelmed him, and he fell senseless to 
the earth. The same Person, who was the great object 
of prophecy, and the Revealer of what was noted in the 
Scripture of truth, needed also to act the part of a Divine 
Physician, and to strengthen the faculties of the pro- 
phet, as well as to provide a glorious vision on which 
his eyes might rest. He touched him once, and the 
swoon passed away, and he stood trembling, but mute 
with deep astonishment. He touched him again, and 
the dumbness was removed, and he was able to utter a 
confession of his weakness, and to plead for further 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 347 

succour and grace. He touched hirn a third time, and 
strength was given, and the prophet could hearken to 
the message, and gaze, even to the last, upon that 
glorious vision. We have here a picture of the constant 
law of all Divine revelations to a world of sinners. 
The Revealer must also himself become the Physician ; 
or else the most glorious revelations of unseen things, 
and the ' largest disclosures of the ways of Providence, 
will be offered in vain, while a death-like stupor settles 
down upon the souls of men. 

Again, there are truths in the spiritual, just as in the 
natural world, which from our actual position must 
become known to us as facts, long . before we could 
attain, by any process of reasoning, to deduce them 
from other truths, or to discover their secret laws. It is 
possible, for instance, that the luminosity of the sun, in 
contrast with the planets, may result in some way, now 
unknown to us, from its immensely superior mass. In 
this case, the solar mass would be a physical cause, and 
the solar light a scientific corollary. But every inhabit- 
ant of the earth must experience the light of the sun, 
long before they could deduce the mass of the sun and 
planets from their observations, or obtain any glimpse 
of a scientific relation between two facts apparently so 
independent. In like manner, unfallen spirits must 
have distinct communion with the persons of the God- 
head, long before they could possibly obtain any glimpse 
of the Trinity as an essential corollary from the per- 
fection of the Divine Being ; and fallen sinners must 
have learned the atonement, and felt its recovering 
power, long before they can be expected to gain any 
deep insight into its mystery, as reconciling the attri- 
butes of the Godhead in the infinitely wise counsel of 
redeeming love. 

These truths, duly weighed, will fully explain the 



348 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

use and need of Divine revelation, without resorting to 
any broad separation of truth into two kinds, of which 
the first may be attained by human faculties alone, and 
the others need a miraculous interference. The ques- 
tion is not what men might possibly learn, supposing 
no moral averseness from Divine truth, and that their 
lives were prolonged indefinitely, to give them space for 
growing discoveries. This is the real question, how, 
within the limits ^ of a very short probation, unwilling 
hearts may be bowed into the attitude of willing 
disciples ; and dull and backward scholars may, within 
a few years or days, become wise to salvation, and gain 
a firm hold on those great doctrines of God's holiness, 
their own corruption and guilt, and that way of accept- 
ance through a Divine atonement, on which all light, 
peace, holiness, and comfort depend. Every child, who 
consults an almanac to learn the time of a coming eclipse 
of the sun, has faculties, which might, perhaps, in the 
course of some thousands or myriads of years, enable 
him to discover for himself the laws of the heavenly 
motions, to reproduce the Newtonian theory, and cal- 
culate the eclipse from his own observations. But an 
abstract capacity, loaded with such conditions, cannot 
in the least diminish the worth of the almanac to such a 
child, as a ready and sufficient source of the information 
which he requires. Nay, the same is true of the most 
advanced astronomer. He may add, by his own labours, 
to the domain of science ; but still he needs, both in his 
daily life and for the wants of his own observatory, to 
depend on the ready-made ephemeris, no less than the 
merest peasant or the youngest child. 

The maxim, then, that Divine revelation must be 
restricted to those subjects which lie entirely beyond 
the reach of human faculties, and which man could 
never possibly learn without some direct aid from 



THE BIBLE AND MODERN SCIENCE. 249 

above, is no less opposed to sound philosophy than to 
the actual features of the Christian religion. If the 
Bible teaches little, comparatively, on matters of phy- 
sical science, it is because it moves on a higher level, 
and refers to spiritual objects ; and still more because, 
in the secondary use which it makes of the works of 
nature, its purpose is best fulfilled by dwelling on 
those aspects of them which lie nearer the surface, and 
are open to the observation of all mankind. On the 
other hand, we have plainly faculties by which we 
can observe or acquire historical facts ; and more than 
one half of the Bible consists of history. We have a 
conscience by which we can discern right and wrong. 
Our Lord himself appeals to the unbelieving Jews — 
" Yea, and why even of yourselves, judge ye not what 
is right ?" The faculty was present, and, if used aright, 
there may have been no absolute limit to its possible 
attainments. And yet the largest portion of the Bible, 
next to simple narrative, consists of moral precepts, 
examples, and exhortations. It is not to supply the 
absence of a missing faculty, but rather to heal the 
sickness of a faculty that is diseased by sin, and to 
quicken its slow and halting progress in the pathway 
of truth and wisdom, that Divine revelation is really 
given. Its authority, then, is stamped alike on every 
part of the truth which lies within the compass of its 
actual message. It is not a map of the world ; but its 
statements of the places where sacred events occurred are 
accurate and true. It is not a system of optics or astro- 
nomy ; but its mention of the visible work of the fourth 
day, of the sunset when Abraham received his vision, 
or the sunrise when Sodom was destroyed, or the dark- 
ness at the crucifixion, is accurate and true. It is not a 
system of chronology ; but the ages and the dates it 
records, when its true text has been ascertained, are, 



350 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

like the gospel itself, worthy of all acceptation. It has 
a holy anointing from the Spirit of truth, which runs 
down to the very skirts of its garment. Its sayings, 
whatever their subject, when cleared from specks and 
flaws that may have been contracted here and there in 
the transmission of the message, are " faithful and 
true ;" for it is " the Lord God of the holy prophets " 
by whom these lively oracles have been given to man- 
kind, " to give light to them that sit in darkness and 
in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the 
way of peace." 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE BIBLE AND NATUKAL CONSCIENCE. 

The relation between the authority of the Bible and the 
claims of conscience is one of the most fundamental 
questions in the whole range of practical theology. 
Any serious mistake on this point strikes at the founda- 
tions of Christianity. If conscience be silenced, and 
external commands, through human interpreters, are 
blindly imposed on the whole church, the way is open 
for the fatal inroad of all kinds of superstition. If 
private conscience be made the supreme authority, and 
the word of God be allowed no other force than it 
borrows from the choice or caprice of the individual, 
we accept a principle which is the root of all infidelity, 
and anarchy will be enthroned under the imposing titles 
of a spiritual religion and a reasonable faith. ' ti 

Statements, which have lately been made, seem clearly 
to present this later view as characteristic of the full 
manhood of the individual Christian, and of the whole 
race of mankind. With the age of reflection, the spirit 
or conscience comes to full strength, and assumes the 
throne. As an accredited judge, invested with full 
powers, he sits on the tribunal of our inner kingdom, 
decides on the past, and legislates on the future, without 
appeal except to himself. He is the third great Teacher, 
and the last. He frames his code of laws, revising, adding, 
abrogating, as a wider and deeper experience gives him 



352 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

clearer light. The law of the child or the youth may 
be an external law, in making, enforcing, and ajDplying 
which we have no share ; which governs from the out- 
side, compelling our will to bow, though our under- 
standing be unconvinced and unenlightened, and cares 
little whether you reluctantly submit or willingly agree. 
But the law which governs and educates the man is 
internal; a voice which speaks within the conscience, 
and carries the understanding along with it ; which 
treats us not as slaves, but as friends; which is not 
imposed by another power, but by our own en- 
lightened will. This law of conscience marks the last 
stage in the education of the human race. We are now 
within the boundaries of this third period. The church 
is left to herself, to work out by her natural faculties the 
principles of her own action. In learning this lesson 
she needed a firm spot, and has found it in the Bible. 
Had this contained precise statements of faith, or 
detailed precepts of conduct, we must either have 
become subject to an outer law, or have lost the highest 
instrument of self-education. But the Bible, from its 
form, is exactly suited to our wants, for even its doc- 
trinal parts are best studied by viewing them as records 
of the highest and greatest religious life of the times. 
Hence it is to be used not to override, but to evoke, the 
voice of conscience. When the two appear to differ, 
the pious Christian immediately concludes that he has 
not really understood the Bible. Its interpretation 
varies always in one direction, and tends to identify 
itself with the voice of conscience. From its form it 
cannot exercise a despotism over the human spirit. If 
so, it would become an outer law at once, and throw 
back the world into the stage of childhood. But its 
form is such that it wins from us all the reverence of a 
supreme authority, and yet imposes on us no yoke of 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 3:3 

subjection. The principle of private judgment puts 
conscience between us and the Bible, and makes it the 
supreme interpreter, whom it maybe a duty to enlighten, 
but never to disobey. 1 

These statements, by a large amount of friendly 
violence, may perhaps be explained away into the 
simple truism, that the Gospel, in contrast to the Law 
of Moses, is a dispensation of liberty, and includes very 
few external ordinances. But in their natural meaning 
they go much further, and involve three principles, 
which evacuate and destroy the whole authority of 
the word of God. They teach, first, that the Scrip- 
tures have no authority, and impose no obligation, 
unless they have been endorsed and accepted by the 
individual conscience ; and then only in that particular 
construction which each one puts upon them in his own 
mind. Secondly, that private, individual conscience is 
a supreme judge, whom, however faulty or imperfect 
his decisions may be, it is always a duty to obey. And 
thirdly, that in the present manhood of the world, when- 
ever public opinion, or the prevailing impressions of 
educated men, and the apparent teaching of Scrip- 
ture, diverge from each other, the voice of Scripture 
must be fitted to the independent conclusions of man's 
natural conscience, and not the general conscience rec- 
tified, purified, and enlightened, by submission to the 
authority of the word of God. 

I. The first main question which needs decision is 
the nature and limit of the authority due to the Scrip- 
tures. Are they a revelation from God, which claims 
obedience and submission in virtue of its Divine origin ? 
Or, are they simply a rich treasury of materials, which 
our conscience, the supreme law, may employ in 
forming its own conclusions, and which impose no obli- 

and Reviews, pp. 31, 34, 44. 

2 A 



354 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

gation, until each particular person adopts and applies 
them in the exercise of his private judgment ? On the 
answer to this inquiry it must depend whether the 
church and the world are still under moral govern- 
ment : or, under the plea of magnifying the rights of 
conscience, we are given up to a state of spiritual 
anarchy, where no law is binding on any Christian, but 
just whatever he chooses to receive and obey. 

Let us "first consider what are the express statements, 
on this subject, of the Scriptures themselves. We find, 
in the very front of our Lord's teaching, the impressive 
sentence — " Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law and the prophets ; I am not come, to destroy, but to 
fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth 
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the 
law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall 
break one of these least commandments, and shall teach 
men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of 
heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the 
same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.' ' 
It seems plain that our Lord speaks here as the great 
Lawgiver. He denies that he has come to set aside the 
authority of commands already given. On the contrary, 
he had come to clear them from pernicious glosses, and 
to develop their full meaning. His purpose was not to 
abrogate, but to enlarge and complete the code of Divine 
morality ; and those who taught the exemption of his 
disciples from even the secondary and inferior precepts 
would lose all claim to spiritual eminence, and be called 
" least in the kingdom of heaven." At the close of the 
discourse we have a renewed warning of the guilt and 
danger of disobedience, and the most prominent feature 
in the whole sermon is declared to be its tone of 
Divine authority. 

If we pass from one of the earliest of our Lord's dis- 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 355 

courses to one of the last, the same feature stands out in 
clear relief, amidst all the rich fulness of its grace and 
compassion : " Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say- 
well, for so I am." " I have given you an example, 
that ye should do as I have done to you." " If ye know 
these things, happy are ye if ye do them." " If ye love 
me, keep my commandments." " He that hath my 
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth 
me." " He that loveth me not, keepeth not my say- 
ings." " If a man love me, he will keep my words." 
" If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my 
love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, 
and abide in his love." " This is my commandment, 
that ye love one another, as I have loved you." 

The lesson of the Epistles is precisely the same. 
More than three chapters of the Epistle to the Eomans 
are composed of distinct apostolic commands, addressed 
with authority to the Roman Christians. The laws of 
the second table are all reimposed, with a gospel com- 
mentary on their mutual relation (xiii. 8-14.) The 
Apostle declares, at the close, that the aim of his whole 
ministry was " to make the Gentiles obedient by word 
and deed ;" and that the Gospel he preached was the 
commandment of Gocl, and made known to the nations 
for the obedience of faith. In 1 Cor. xiv. 37, we have 
the impressive caution, — " If any man think himself to 
be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the 
things which I write unto you are the commandments 
of the Lord." In the Second Epistle he tells them, 
" To this end did I write, that I might know the proof 
of you, whether ye be obedient in all things," and he 
distinguishes in one case between simple advice and 
direct apostolic precept (2 Cor. viii. 8 — 10). One half 
of the Epistle to the Ephesians is made up of such 
precepts, given in the most direct and imperative form, 

2 a 2 



356 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

while the fifth commandment is recognised as still 
binding on Christians — " Honour thy father and mother, 
which is the first commandment with promise ; that it 
may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on 
the earth." In the Epistle to the Philippians, the same 
truth is taught in plain terms, that Christian disciples 
were bound by the authority of apostolic commands : 
" Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, 
not in my presence only, but now much more in my 
absence, work out your own salvation with fear and 
trembling." In every other epistle of St. Paul the 
same truth appears. St. James is even more explicit, 
and says to the Christian believers, " Whosoever shall 
keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is 
guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, 
said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, 
yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the 
law." And again, " Speak not evil one of another. 
He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his 
brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law ; 
but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the 
law, but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able 
to save and to destroy." St. Peter fills his First 
Epistle with precepts of the most pointed and authori- 
tative kind ; while in his Second he states the object of 
both his letters in these words : " That ye may be 
mindful of the words which were spoken before by the 
holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the 
apostles of the Lord and Saviour." St. John's Epistle 
abounds in declarations of the same kind : " Hereby we 
do know that we know him, if we keep his command- 
ments." " I write no new commandment unto you, but 
an old commandment, which ye had from the begin- 
ning. Again a new commandment I write unto you." 
" Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth also the law 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 357 

for sin is the transgression of the law." " Whatsoever 
we ask we receive of him, because we keep his com- 
mandments." " This is his commandment, that we 
should believe on the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, 
and love one another, as he gave us commandment." 
" This is the love of God, that we keep his command- 
ments, and his commandments are not grievous." 
" This is love, that we walk after his commandments." 
In the last book of the canon, though mainly prophetic, 
this same truth enters into the repeated description of 
the faithful, that "they keep the commandments of 
God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." 

Now in all these passages, which are only specimens 
out of a large number, we are taught that every Chris- 
tian is distinctly placed under the authority of God's 
commands, given by Christ and his Apostles, and re- 
corded in the New Testament ; and the duty of obedi- 
ence is made to depend simply on the fact that such 
commands have been given. They cannot be rightly 
obeyed, unless they are first understood, and their 
Divine authority recognised. But these are conditions 
of actual obedience, and not of the obligation to obey. 
So far is this from being true, that neglect of the 
message is itself ranked amongst the most dangerous 
and deadly sins. 

This great truth, that the commands of Scripture are 
binding by their own authority as the words of God, 
and not simply when endorsed by the private con- 
science, results further from the distinct mention, in the 
Bible, of sins of ignorance, and of presumption. Now 
if no command were obligatory on the Christian but 
such as his own conscience has previously recognised, 
this distinction must be set aside. Sins of ignorance 
would then be impossible, and all sins would be those of 
presumption, or committed with the present knowledge 



358 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

that they were sins. But this contradicts equally the 
Old Testament and the New. The Law made distinct 
and full provision for the pardon of sins of ignorance, 
and of those alone (Numb. xv. 22-31). The Psalmist 
offers the petition, " Keep back thy servant from pre- 
sumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me." 
But it is only after the confession and prayer, " Who 
can understand his errors ? cleanse thou me from secret 
faults." And the prayer of our Lord upon the cross for 
his murderers places the contrast in the clearest light : 
" Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they 
do." On the principle now examined, these sinners 
must have been guiltless, because their own conscience 
had never pronounced sentence against them for their 
great and aggravated crime. 

But this notion, that moral obligations depend simply 
on the impressions of the individual conscience, and not 
on the true relations between each person and his 
fellow-creatures, and the glorious Creator, is no less 
opposed to the lessons of a sound philosophy than to 
the plain and repeated statements of the word of God. 
Moral commands are in their own nature as unchange- 
able as the being of God, the relations of sovereignty 
and dominion which He bears towards his intelligent 
creatures, and their own capacities for receiving and 
imparting happiness. Add to these relations a power 
of choice, and nothing more is required to create moral 
obligation. The office of conscience is not to create 
new duties, but to discern those which do exist, and 
bring home to us their imperative claim on our "obedi- 
ence. The atheist is bound to love his Maker with all 
his heart and mind, no less really than the most devout 
Christian. The man steeped in selfishness, till he has 
come to reckon worldly prudence his sole duty, is bound 
to love his neighbour as himself, no less than a Howard 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 359 

or a Wilberforce, a St. Paul or a St. John. The most 
ignorant idolater, who hows down with sincere reve- 
rence to his idol, and says, " Deliver me, for thou art my 
God," is bound by the second commandment, no less 
than Moses, or Isaiah, or Daniel. For the command is 
based on a Divine attribute, which is unchangeable, and 
not on the slippery and uncertain impressions or fancies 
of sinful men. No doctrine can be more dangerous to 
society than one which exempts from the laws of the 
second table the disobedient child, the revengeful 
duellist or assassin, the abandoned sensualist, the thief 
and slanderer, whenever they have seared their own 
conscience, and lost the feeling of their own obligation. 
And none can be more fatal to true religion than one 
which pronounces atheism and idolatry to be blameless, 
whenever the fool has really said in his heart, " There 
is no God ;" or a deceived heart has turned the idolater 
aside, " that he cannot deliver his soul, or say, Is there 
not a lie in my right hand ?" 

II. Again, is Conscience a supreme judge, invested 
with full powers, who legislates without any appeal 
but to himself, and whom it may be a duty to enlighten, 
but can never be a duty to disobey ? Are the Scriptures 
merely an exciting cause to awaken the independent 
voice of this judge, and must their teaching be accom- 
modated to it, whenever they seem to diverge from each 
other ? 

The answer to this question is partly implied in the 
reply to the former. If the laws of God are of binding 
authority in their own right, then a mistaken conscience 
can never reverse the true law of duty. It may render 
acts relatively sinful which are lawful in themselves, 
because a person would thereby run counter to his own 
sense of what is right ; but it cannot make that lawful 
which in itself is wrong. The law of God does not 



360 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

prescribe mechanical acts, irrespective of the temper 
and spirit in which they are done. " He that doubteth 
is condemned, if he eat; because he doeth it not in 
faith ; for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." A diseased 
conscience introduces a moral discord, so that actions 
against the conscience, even when materially right, 
become morally wrong. But this, far from proving 
that conscience is a supreme judge without appeal, 
proves exactly the reverse. It shews the moral dis- 
cernment of right and wrong to be so essential a part 
of the moral being that, when this is perverted, sin is 
inevitable, whether we obey its lessons, or disobey them. 
Men cannot render God a fit and acceptable service, 
when " their own heart and conscience are defiled." 

The true question is not, whether a mistaken con- 
science can render acts sinful to the individual which 
are lawful in themselves, but whether it can render 
actions lawful, which, apart from its erroneous decision, 
are morally wrong. Such a doctrine is a direct procla- 
mation of moral anarchy. It strikes at the very 
foundation of the dominion of God. 

Let us test it, first, by one or two statements in the 
Scriptures themselves. Our Lord gave the warning to 
his disciples : " The time will come when he that killeth 
you will think that he doeth God service." Were these 
persecutors of the first disciples innocent, when they 
carried out their sincere convictions of duty by mur- 
dering the saints of God ? If private conscience be a 
supreme judge, and without appeal; they were innocent. 
But the Scriptures pronounce them deeply criminal, and 
their voice is confirmed by the deepest instincts of every 
Christian heart. Again, was Saul of Tarsus innocent 
when he " verily thought with himself that he ought to 
do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Naza- 
reth ?" Was his conduct blameless when he consented 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 361 

to the murder of Stephen, and held the raiment of them 
that slew him ? Was he a pattern of moral uprightness 
when he "made havoc of the church, entering into 
every house, and haling men and women committed 
them to prison," when he " punished them oft in every 
synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme ?" What 
is his own sentence, when recovered to a sounder mind ? 
He declares himself, on account of these conscientious 
acts, to have been " the chief of sinners." He proclaims 
himself a marvellous example of the riches of God's 
long-suffering, that the most guilty, in later ages, might 
not despair of the Divine mercy because of the great- 
ness of their crimes. He alludes to the ignorance under 
which he then laboured, but never dreams that it had 
power to turn his sins into virtues, and to free them 
from blame. Its only effect, in his view, was to avert 
a still deeper measure of guilt, so as to leave his case 
just within the extreme limit of Divine forbearance. 
" Who before was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and 
injurious ; but I obtained mercy, because I did it igno- 
rantly, in unbelief." " Howbeit for this cause I ob- 
tained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew 
forth all longsuffering." Nothing can be more decisive 
and clear than this judgment of the great Apostle in 
the deliberate review of his own history. A perverted 
conscience cannot alter the nature of sin, and make it 
lawful. It merely frees it from that deeper aggra- 
vation, in which men sin presumptuously against the 
light, and their own convictions, and thus load them- 
selves with a more dangerous, and almost hojDeless 
condemnation. 

The same conclusion results equally from a direct 
consideration of the nature of conscience. It may be 
allowable, as a figure of rhetoric, to speak of it as a 
judge which holds its court within the soul, and pro- 



362 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

nounces its judgment on all the lower faculties. But 
such metaphors, when constantly used, are liable to 
create a serious delusion. When it is said that con- 
science comes in between the Bible and ourselves, as a 
mediator and interpreter, the metaphor has been mis- 
taken for a fact, and leads to dangerous consequences. 
For conscience is simply the mind itself, exercising its 
judgment on the moral relations of right and wrong in 
its own actions, and the actions of others. Its supre- 
macy over other faculties is merely a varied expression 
for the truth, that the relations the mind contemplates, 
when its acts receive this name, are in their own nature 
of binding authority, and claim allegiance and sub- 
mission. In its other actings, the mind contemplates 
things equal or inferior to itself, or superior beings, 
irrespective of any claim to actual dominion and supre- 
macy. But the laws of moral duty are royal laws in 
their own nature, and speak with a voice of a king ; and 
the judgments of the mind, in which it recognises them, 
partake of the same character. Thus the supremacy of j 
conscience depends entirely on the distinctive nature of 
moral truth ; but its defects, weakness, and error are 
due to the mind itself, and are one form of its moral 
guilt and infirmity. Its dictates are binding, there- 
fore, so far as they are the true reflection of eternal 
truths, or of real moral relations perceived by the 
soul. But the mistakes of conscience have no more 
real authority than any other kind of error. They have 
this peculiar feature, that they make sin inevitable. In 
obeying them the man sins against laws of Grod ; and, 
in disobeying them, against his own convictions of duty, 
and the internal harmony of his own moral being. 

Conscience, then, is no mediator, which private judg- 
ment can interpose between the mind of the Christian 
and the word of God, so as to shield him from the 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 303 

weight of the direct authority of the Scriptures. It is 
simply the mind itself, recognising the control of moral 
obligations, whether dimly taught by the light of Nature, 
or more clearly by the voice of Divine revelation. If 
the Bible be the word of Grod, then its moral precepts 
must be received by the conscience at once, so far as 
they are understood, and owned to be obligatory. If it 
be viewed as a human production, a double process will 
be required : first, to discover what it enjoins ; and next, 
to discern how far its precepts are confirmed by the 
moral judgment, which may be formed on other grounds. 
In this case, natural conscience may be said to come 
between the soul and the Bible, because its revealed 
commands are not held to be binding of themselves, and 
require to be ratified by some further and more decisive 
authority. But this plainly involves an entire denial 
of its Divine character. On the other hand, when its 
authority is allowed, there can be no middle party re- 
quired, to render its precepts of direct and immediate 
obligation. They bind, because they exist, and are the 
voice of God. They can be felt to be binding, and 
guide the practice, only so far as their authority is 
accepted, and their true meaning is discerned. A 
personal conviction with regard to our own duty must 
accompany the acting of the mind upon the moral lessons 
in the word of God ; but it neither adds to their 
authority, nor creates the obligation to obey ; just as an 
image on the retina does not really intervene between 
the eye and the landscape, and is only a necessary 
result, from the optical structure of the eye, during the 
act of vision. 

III. A third question remains to be examined. Is 
it one feature of the present advanced age of the world, 
that whenever Scripture and private conscience appear 
to diverge, we must suit our construction of Scripture 



364 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. ' 

to the supposed lessons of conscience, instead of mould- 
ing the conscience into submission to the truth of God ? 
This is a very momentous inquiry. It has been affirmed 
that " when conscience and the Bible appear to differ, 
the pious Christian immediately concludes that he has 
not really understood the Bible." In other words, his 
conscience may be assumed to be infallible, but his inter- 
pretation may be wrong, and the latter must be revised 
and varied, till the discrepancy is removed. 

Now such statements as these involve a double error. 
They assume that conscience, in the case of the pious 
Christian, can give decisions independent of the moral 
teaching of the Scriptures, and unaffected by it ; and 
also, that its decisions are less fallible, and more trust- 
worthy, than the conclusions drawn with regard to the 
true meaning of the words of God. 

First, it is untrue that the conscience of the pious 
Christian can give decisive judgments, while he is still 
uncertain whether they agree with the word of God, 
and even suspects some contradiction between them. 
For since he believes that the Bible is a Divine revela- 
tion, he must believe that what God really commands 
in his word is just, right, and true, and that moral 
judgments contradicting that word must be deceptive 
and erroneous. An infidel, of course, may form moral 
judgments in entire independence of the Scriptures, 
and when they differ from his impression of the Bible 
precepts, he will at once impute the difference to the 
moral immaturity of the sacred writers. But with the 
Christian this is impossible. So long as he remains 
imcertain what the Scriptures really teach on a question 
of morals, so long the voice of conscience must remain in 
suspense, because he dare not pretend to set up his own 
guesses above the express revelations of the living God. 
The mere assertion, then, of the power and right of the 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 365 

natural conscience to form a fixed moral judgment on 
cases mentioned in the Scriptures, before the voice of 
Scripture itself has been heard, is a virtual rejection of 
Christianity. Such a claim is consistent and natural in 
the lips of the unbeliever alone. 

It is plain, however, that the natural conscience may 
form impressions on laws of moral duty, or the charac- 
ter of particular actions, of a provisional kind, which 
diverge from the first impressions left on the mind by 
the teaching of Scripture, without any formal rejection 
of its authority. And the second question which arises 
must be, how these are to be reconciled together. 
Must our interpretation of Scripture always give way 
to the supposed voice of natural conscience ? Or must 
conscience always submit to the apparent meaning of 
Scripture ? Or again, must each, in turn, be modified 
and revised by the help of the other ? 

The true answer is here very evident to a thoughtful 
mind. Our interpretations of the Bible are liable to 
error, especially with regard to its indirect moral teach- 
ing, by examples, or in exceptional circumstances ; and 
so also are the first impressions of natural conscience. 
The disciples needed their eyes to be opened, that they 
might understand the Scriptures ; and they, whose heart 
and conscience are defiled, will be sure to form erroneous 
conclusions on moral right and wrong, till they have 
been cleansed and renewed by the Spirit of God. To 
claim infallibility for crude and hasty inferences from 
Scripture, so as to quench deep moral instincts of the 
soul, is the high road to all superstition. To set up 
natural conscience for an infallible rule, and either to 
reject the voice of Scripture, or violently to distort it, 
in order to get rid of a felt discordance from that rule, 
is the very essence of infidelity. The path of true 
wisdom lies between these extremes. It will use the 



366 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

plainer lessons of conscience to correct and remove 
gross and careless misconstructions of the lesson con- 
veyed in isolated narratives of Scripture. But it will 
also use the voice of Scripture, especially when derived 
from the comparison of many passages, to correct the 
superficial and erroneous teachings of natural conscience ; 
and thus to raise it, from the low level of a spurious 
charity, a mere counterfeit of true benevolence, into 
communion with the Divine holiness, and the solemn, 
as well as the tender and gentle features, of heavenly 
love. 

IY. Is there no difference then, it may still be asked, 
between the liberty of the Christian, and the rigour of 
the Jewish dispensation ? Are we now, in the times 
of the Gospel, no less under the dominion of an external 
law, than the disciples of Moses under the elder cove- 
nant? Are we not taught by the Apostle, in most 
emphatic language, that Christians are " not under the 
law, but under grace ?" Are we not charged to " stand 
fast in the liberty of Christ, and not to be entangled 
with a yoke of bondage ?" Do not these and similar 
passages lend some countenance to the idea, that in 
former ages there were commands binding on the con- 
science simply in virtue of their publication ; but that 
now, under the Gospel, no command is of authority till 
received and digested by the conscience itself, as a kind 
of spiritual moderator, and thus engraven on the tablets 
of the heart ? Perhaps the simplest and clearest reply 
to these questions will be found in a brief review of 
those foundations of Christian morality and Christian 
faith, on which their right solution must depend. 

First of all, moral truth is not a mutable and variable 
thing. It is no chance product of human opinion, no 
capricious and arbitrary creation of the Divine will. It 
is the reflection of God's own moral perfection, in its 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 367 

relation to the responsible creatures He has made, and 
is thus unchangeable in its principles and grand out- 
lines, like the attributes of the Most High. Moral 
perfection is in reality the Divine image retained in the 
spirit of angels, and restored in the^ souls of men. 
'* God is love," and the full resemblance of that love 
is the perfection of the rational creature, the great and 
supreme law of moral duty. But since all being is 
twofold, the Creator and his creatures, this law parts at 
once into two great commandments, the love of God, 
the Supreme Goodness, and the love of God's creatures. 
Thus it forms the double precept, in its wide and full 
meaning, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart," and " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
self." Each of these admits of further divisions, accord- 
ing to the attributes or states of the object loved, and 
the capacity or state of the moral agent himself. To 
dwell on the second only — love to our fellow-creatures 
may assume three fundamental varieties. They may be 
viewed simply as creatures capable of happiness ; and 
love to them under this character is simple benevolence, 
which extends even to lower forms of irrational life. 
They may be viewed, next, as moral creatures, loving 
or selfish, holy or unholy. Love towards them in this 
second aspect assumes two opposite forms — the love of 
the good, and the hatred or abhorrence of the evil ; 
and this constitutes moral righteousness or holiness. 
Again, sinful and unholy creatures may be viewed as 
still capable of moral recovery. Love to them, under 
this charactei, constitutes the last and highest element 
of true Christian morality, or that " grace " which is the 
distinguishing lesson of the Gospel of Christ. Still 
further, the complex nature of man, as composed of 
body and soul, and his own condition, as a dying crea- 
ture under moral probation, and a sinner encompassed 



368 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

by acts and messages of Divine grace, vary these funda- 
mental outlines, and multiply them into an immense 
diversity of moral obligations. 

Conscience is simply the mind itself, viewed in its 
capacity for discerning the truth and authority of these 
obligations, and for passing judgment, by the aid of this 
knowledge, upon all the various actions of men. It is 
an enlightened conscience, when these relations are 
seen clearly, and felt in all their real power. It is a 
dark and ignorant conscience, when they are ill under- 
stood, and the mind seldom awakens to the sense of their 
surpassing and supreme importance. It is a perverse 
and defiled conscience, when the love of sin in the 
heart warps and falsifies the judgment, so that men 
call evil good, and good evil, put light for darkness, 
and darkness for light, bitter for sweet, and sweet for 
bitter. It is a seared conscience, when the soul be- 
comes reckless and wilfully desperate in sin, and refuses 
altogether to own the unchanging authority of the 
eternal laws of right and wrong. 

The conscience of man, since the fall, is darkened 
and defiled, but neither wholly seared and insensible, 
nor totally blind. His sense of his duty towards God 
is the most grievously obscured, and in a lower degree, 
but far less completely, his sense of obligation towards 
his fellow-men. By the mere light of nature, in favour- 
able circumstances, he attains some partial knowledge 
of the duties of truth, justice, and benevolence. But, 
without the teaching of revelation, all the higher lessons 
of moral obligation, the holiness of the law, and the 
grace of the Gospel, remain almost or altogether un- 
known. 

Now, in using the higher ■ help, and fuller teaching, 
which Divine revelation supplies, men are exposed, 
from a double cause, to the risk of serious error. Mere 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 369 

intellectual dulness, or haste and rashness, form one 
source of misinterpretation ; and moral disease and 
darkness are another, still more dangerous. Through 
dulness or haste, men may mistake beacons of warning 
for moral examples, or the absence of express con- 
demnation of wrong actions for a virtual approval ; or 
the praise of mixed actions, because of some element 
of faith and piety, for a sanction to all the accessories 
of human infirmity and sin ; or duties, resulting from 
rare and exceptional circumstances, may be taken for 
normal examples, given for general imitation. In all 
these cases a conscience, moderately enlightened, may 
serve to correct the too hasty inferences of a superficial 
judgment. 

But the other source of error is wider in its opera- 
tion, and far more dangerous. The sinful heart shrinks 
from the holiness of the Divine law, and seeks by a 
natural instinct to elude its authority. The severity 
of God's anger against sin grates painfully upon ears 
that are in love with worldly pleasure ; and it is striven 
to set the truth aside, as a contradiction to the Divine 
benevolence. The laws of the first table, as most 
obnoxious to the fallen heart, are wholly rejected, or 
robbed of all the fulness of their meaning ; and those 
of the second table are pruned and lowered, till grace 
is turned into moral indifference, and holiness defamed 
as a Jewish superstition. All that remains is then a 
wretched caput mortuum of sickly, sentimental, unreal 
benevolence, degenerating by degrees into selfish pru- 
dence alone. Thus, instead of conscience being an 
infallible guide, to whose independent decisions our 
interpretations of Scripture must be compelled to bow, 
the exact reverse is true. The diseases and obliquities 
of conscience, in sinful men, are the most fruitful cause 
of laborious perversions of the word of God. Men love 

2 B 



370 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT, 

darkness rather than light, because their deeds are 
evil. They shrink, with instinctive shuddering, from 
the holy severity, and stern authority of the Divine 
Law ; and too readily corrupt and pervert the grace of 
the Gospel itself, by confounding it with the doctrine 
of indiscriminate mercy, and a message of universal 
impunity to sin. 

The authority, however, of the commands of God 
does not and cannot depend on the willing submission 
of men. A diseased conscience may shrink from the 
light, and close the eyes against it. A sinful heart 
may send up thick vapours, like the smoke from the 
abyss, to obscure this upper firmament. But the stars 
abide in their everlasting courses, and never cease to 
shine, nor to rule over this night-season of moral dark- 
ness, until the full Day-spring shall arise. Whether 
known or unknown, whether obeyed or disobeyed, the 
great law of love, along with all the corollaries that 
flow from it, is always binding upon the souls of men. 
They cannot, by any wilful darkness, escape from its 
power. They can hide themselves in no cavern, where 
its presence does not overtake them, and pronounce 
them guilty, so long as they refuse, or even neglect to 
obey. 

This law of duty, in its higher and nobler aspects, 
applies to man simply as an immortal spirit, and re- 
quires the obedience of the heart alone. But in its 
lower and more practical forms, it applies to man both 
in soul and body, and requires the obedience of the 
outward act, as well as in the affections of the heart. 
Under the earlier dispensation of the Law, these outward 
requirements were greatly multiplied, and were needed 
to train and discipline the inner man to the free ser- 
vice of love. Out of the corruption of this system 
arose the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, which 



THE BIBLE AND NATURAL CONSCIENCE. 371 

•worshipped the outward form, and stifled or denied the 
inner meaning of the Divine commands, and in which 
the weightier matters of the law — judgment, mercy, and 
faith — were completely set aside. 

The contrast, then, of the Gospel of Christ with the 
Law of Moses does not consist in the abrogation of the 
Divine commands, or in making them dependent, for 
their authority, on the previous endorsement of man's 
natural conscience. That would indeed be a fatal 
error, and pave the way for the great Antichristian 
apostasy of the last days. In this nobler astronomy, 
the earth must revolve around the sun, not the sun 
around the earth. The conscience of man, a dependent 
and subordinate gift of the Creator, must submit to the 
firm and eternal laws of his moral government. It 
is a planet which derives all its light, and order, and 
beauty, not only from the enlightening beams, but 
from the controlling authority, of the Sun of righteous- 
ness. Once let that control be withdrawn, and it 
becomes indeed a " wandering star," which must travel 
farther and farther into the depths of error and delusion, 
till it loses itself in the outer darkness. Such was the 
state of those Jewish persecutors, in early days, of 
whom our Lord warned his disciples — " The time will 
come, when he that killeth you will think he doeth 
God service." Such was the state, in later times, of 
those importers of ascetic superstition into the Church 
of Christ " speaking lies in hypocrisy, seared in their 
own conscience as with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, 
and commanding to abstain from meats, which God 
hath created to be received with thanksgiving." Such 
is the inspired description of those selfish apostates of 
the last days, who " walk after the flesh in the lust of 
uncleanness, and despise government," and " whose 
own heart and conscience are defiled" with the love 

2 b 2 



372 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 1 

and practice of sensual sin. It is only when the con- 
science bows with reverence and full submission to the 
authority of God's written word, that, like a planet 
obeying the central law of gravitation, it abides in the 
light which streams from Him whose word it obeys. It 
then receives and reflects the pure light of Divine truth, 
in its innumerable applications to every field of moral 
duty, and to all the varied relations of human life, and 
the hills and valleys of earth are bathed with the bright- 
ness and the sunshine of heaven. 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 373 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 

The Bible combines within itself various characters. 
It is a Sacred History, a Code of Religious Doctrine and 
Morality, and a Message of Peace and Hope, or a Pro- 
phecy, to successive generations, of a Redemption to 
come. If truly inspired, it will bear, in every one of 
these characters, some impress of its Divine Author. 
It will be pure, for Grod is pure ; and holy, for Grod is 
holy. It will be marked by historical unity, for 

known unto Grod are all his works from the begin- 
ning ;" by doctrinal consistency, and fulness, for " the 
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, even the deep things 
of God ;" by practical power over the hearts of men, 
for the word of God is a word of power, and " effectually 
worketh in them that believe ;" by harmony in its pro- 
phetic announcements, for its Author is that Spirit 
i to whom all the secrets of the future are disclosed, 
whose messages are of no private interpretation, but 
a consistent revelation of the good things to come. Let 
us examine the Bible, first, as a Sacred History, and 
see whether, in this aspect, it does not yield abundant 
evidence of its Divine authority and inspiration. 

The historical books of Scripture form three-fifths of 
the whole. They are composed by nearly twenty 
writers, in two different languages, during a space of 
more than fifteen hundred years. If merely the works 



374 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

of men, it would therefore be vain to expect in them 
any marked unity of plan, outline, and moral purpose, 
running through the whole. Such a unity, if it be 
found to exist, must evince the presence of a higher 
author, the Spirit of God. 

I. Now, first, the historical character of the Bible 
is in itself a mark of the Divine wisdom, by which it 
has been suited to its professed office, as a public revela- 
tion from God to man. By this alone it is widely dis- 
tinguished from nearly every case of pretended revela- 
tion. Facts and imposture do not agree together. 
There is no history, properly so called, in the Koran ; 
none in the Shasters and Yedas of Hinduism ; none in 
the Zendavesta ; none in the sacred books of Egypt, 
so far as they are recovered, or their contents are 
known. But the Bible is, first of all, a sacred history. 
It professes to be God's own record of the leading facts 
in the course and progress of the moral government 
of our world through successive ages. It mounts 
upward to a period so remote, that no parallel testi- 
monies exist, with which to compare it. But it reaches 
onward through all the later periods of ancient history ; 
while it closes, in the first century of the Christian 
era, amidst the fullest blaze of Greek and Roman civili- 
zation. Three-fifths of each Testament are purely his- 
torical. In either case the histories take precedence 
of all the other sacred books, and form the basis on 
which they rest, and out of which they evidently 
spring. 

This historical form of the message fulfils many im- 
portant objects. It is, in the first place, a convincing 
pledge for the reality of the whole. Men are prone, 
by nature, to flee from their Maker's presence, and 
hide themselves in the dark caverns of their own un- 
belief. Purely doctrinal messages, or spiritual truths : 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 375 

presented in an abstract form, would have little power 
to meet and overcome this great evil. Men need to be 
taught that the Almighty is a God nigh at hand, a real, 
living Governor, whose authority, like the blue sky, 
bends over all, and whether they choose or refuse, 
embraces them continually on every side. 

A revelation, couched in a history of mankind from the 
creation downward, meets this temptation of the fallen 
heart, desirous to escape, if possible, from the sense of the 
Divine presence. Men cannot escape from the history 
of the Bible. Its facts encounter them on every side. 
If they go back to creation, the Bible is there, and if 
they trace out the dispersed families of mankind, the 
Bible is there also. If they take the wings of the 
morning, to visit the lands of the East ; there, in the 
land of Egypt, or the plains of Chaldea, amidst Arabian 
deserts, or the hills and valleys of Canaan, the ever- 
present hand of God, revealed in these histories, holds 
them in on every side. The obelisks of Nineveh are 
brought suddenly to light, after a burial of two thousand 
five hundred years, and Bible facts are found engraven 
upon them. The monuments of Egypt are deciphered, 
and Shishak, So, Tirhakah, Necho, and Hophra, all 
the Pharaohs whose names meet us in the Bible, meet 
us there also, and dovetail at once into their places in 
the sacred history. In later times the remains of 
antiquity bring before us, in the coins of Herod the 
Great, and Herod Antipas, in the guild of dyers at 
Thyatira, the corn ships of Alexandria, the title of the 
Boman chief of Melita, and inscriptions by the " temple- 
keeping Ephesians" to the great Artemis, and her 
heaven-descended image, ever multiplying coincidences 
with the New Testament history. The plains east of 
Jordan are explored; and in Bashan, the Bible "land 
of giants," after thousands of years, buildings worthy 



376 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

of a race of giants are brought to light once more. The 
voices from the half-deciphered tombs of the old 
Pharaohs, even though fulsome adulation, royal pride, 
and foul idolatry, have left on them a triple stamp of 
falsehood, seem still, in many parts, like dim and 
muffled echoes of the true sayings of God. Their diver- 
gence from the Bible, where they seem to diverge the 
most, resembles the difference between the same land- 
scape seen dimly through a sea of mist, and in clear 
sunlight. In proportion as we emerge out of obscure 
antiquity into an historical age, their harmony with 
the Bible becomes apparent. Where the divergence 
seems wide in the view of some investigators, amidst 
the twilight of the world's infancy, there are still such 
important points of agreement with Genesis and Exodus, 
as to force the suspicion, even on the least religious 
minds, that after all, the defect may belong to the 
blunders of interpreters, or to the falsehoods of pride 
and flattery in the heathen sculptures themselves, and 
leave the truth of the Bible unshaken and unimpaired. 

But there is a further benefit in the historical form 
of the Bible, besides the evidence which it forces, even 
on reluctant hearts, of the reality of God's moral govern- 
ment. The Divine message is brought into greater 
harmony with the weakness of mankind. 

The view has been lately advanced, that precept, 
example, and internal conscience, form three successive 
stages, both in the training of the individual, and of the 
world. But the hypothesis, even apart from the con- 
clusions which have been rested upon it, seems very 
questionable. Example comes even earlier, perhaps, 
than precept, in the real order of moral training. The 
child imitates out of mere instinct, even before it has 
learned to obey. It seems a truer description, that 
example is the means by which mere instinct is gradu- 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 377 

ally transformed into conscious and intelligent submis- 
sion to moral law. Its influence is not by any means 
delayed until childhood is passing into youth. It 
begins with the first hours of infancy, and is then, 
perhaps, relatively the most powerful ; though its 
absolute power may increase with the growth of 
thought and reason, and become still more conspicuous, 
when the years of childhood are passing away. Moral 
tales have a mighty power over children, long before a 
code of ethics would have any great influence. Even 
with the majority of educated men, biographies and 
travels are more attractive, and do more in moulding 
the heart, than didactic treatises of a moral kind. 

Now the Bible, by the large proportion of direct 
narrative it contains, and the precedence of these his- 
torical books over the rest, is wisely adapted to this 
instinct of our nature. It deals with men, as truly 
children in the sight of God, who need training by 
examples and simple narratives, before direct precepts 
can exercise their due power, or mysterious truths and 
doctrines be usefully revealed. The sacred histories 
form thus the larger portion of each Testament. They 
are the stem on which all the other parts depend. 
Plain, real fact, blossoming out into .high and holy 
truth, is the character, throughout, of the word of Grod. 
It stoops, first of all, by its narratives, to the condition 
of men, as dwelling in the outward world of time and 
sense, that it may raise them to the knowledge of their 
Maker, and the vision of unseen and eternal things. 

II. The Unity of Purpose, in all the sacred histories, 
is a further token of their Divine origin. The Bible 
is a history of redemption. It begins with a brief 
account of the Creation. But after its mention of the 
Temptation and the Fall, it announces the coming of a 
Eedeemer, who would subdue the deceiver and adver- 



S78 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

sary of mankind. The expansion of this hope is the 
one object of all the later histories. They reveal the 
main steps of Divine Providence, by which this first 
great promise was to be at length fulfilled. Amidst the 
rank and luxurious growth of lust and violence, of 
unbelief and idolatry, truth and righteousness are kept 
alive in the earth by ceaseless acts of Divine power and 
wisdom ; till at length the Seed of the Woman is born, 
and a new and brighter era of gospel hope dawns upon 
the benighted nations, which had long been sitting in 
darkness, and the shadow of death. 

All the main features of the Bible history are simply 
explained by a reference to this great object of the 
whole message. It determines what is said, and what 
is left in silence ; what is briefly touched upon, and 
what is unfolded more at large. A few chapters are 
the sole record of two thousand years from Adam to 
Abraham. The work of redemption was then in its 
first infancy. The Spirit of God, like the dove when it 
first returned to the ark of Noah, seems to flee away 
from those ages of dim light, and abounding wickedness ; 
and to await, in silence and hope, the abating of the 
floods of ungodliness, and the arrival of brighter days. 

With the call of Abraham a new era in the scheme 
of Divine mercy plainly began. Here, also, the history 
evidently begins to expand, and becomes far more copious. 
Still, it passes by in silence the rise of idolatrous empires, 
and confines its narrative, almost entirely, to the fives 
of the three chosen patriarchs, whose names were to be 
linked inseparably, through all later ages, with the name 
of the true and only Grod. Two hundred years from 
the death of Jacob to the Exodus, are dismissed in three 
chapters only. But with the Exodus itself began a 
fresh stage of Divine revelation, and two whole books, 
mainly historical, are occupied with the great subject, 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 37£ 

accompanied by two others, filled with the Divine laws, 
which were given to the people of Israel. Another 
whole book is given to the narrative of the conquest, the 
historical basis of the Jewish polity for fifteen hundred 
years, and itself the type of a greater deliverance. But 
three centuries that follow, in which there was no fresh 
revelation, are compressed into a single book, with one 
short episode in the history of Ruth. The line of in- 
spired prophets began with Samuel, and that of kings 
with Saul and David ; and the history expands once 
more, and is on a larger scale. It attains its greatest 
fulness in the reign of David, the centre of a new era 
of Divine promise ; and then contracts into a more 
rapid sketch of the later reigns. Three short books, 
after the Captivity, are marked by the entire absence of 
miracles, by the continuation of the history of Juclah 
alone, by a remarkable preservation of the chosen people, 
and by a definite prediction of the time when Messiah 
would appear. The history is then suspended, until the 
time of the Incarnation. It resumes with a short 
account of our Lord's infancy, and a fuller record of his 
public ministry, death, and resurrection, by four different 
witnesses. One of these continues his earlier narrative 
of our Lord's lifetime by a history of the early church, 
until the Gospel is firmly planted by St. Paul himself in 
the metropolis of the heathen world. 

Now in all these histories one great purpose is con- 
spicuous. Hope in a Saviour still to come is the leading 
feature of the Old Testament ; and faith in a Saviour 
who has actually appeared is the animating principle of 
the New. Facts are omitted, which have only a remote 
bearing on this great hope of the church ; and those are 
unfolded most fully, into which it enters with the 
greatest clearness. The Bible history, from first to last, 
is instinct with life and hope. Everywhere it reveals 



380 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

the Spirit of God, brooding over the dark and troubled 
waters of a sinful world, and preparing the way for a 
great and blessed regeneration still to come. 

III. Continuity of Outline is another main feature of 
the Bible history. It does not resemble, in the least, 
the independent workmanship of twenty writers, the 
earliest separated from the latest by fifteen hundred 
years. It wears the marks of one continued narrative, 
carried on uniformly through four thousand years, from 
the days of Paradise to the preaching of St. Paul to the 
Jews at Rome, with one single break, where the Law 
and the Prophets are parted from the higher message 
of the Gospel of Christ. 

This continuity is seen in the whole series of the Old 
Testament histories. The Book of Genesis reaches from 
the Creation, in one unbroken descent, to the death of 
Joseph. Exodus begins with the death of Joseph and 
his brethren, and carries us through the deliverance 
itself, till the tabernacle is finished, at the opening of 
the second year, and filled with the cloud of glory. 
Numbers resumes from the same time, or rather earlier, 
before the second Passover, and reaches to the conquest 
of the land on the east of Jordan. Deuteronomy, 
besides a review of the journeys in the wilderness, closes 
with an account of the death of Moses. The Book of 
Joshua reaches from the death of Moses to that of 
Joshua and of Eleazar. The Book of Judges resumes 
with some details of the conquest, and reaches to the 
death of Samson, after the long strife with the Philis- 
tines had begun. The First Book of Samuel begins 
with the birth of the prophet, in the days of Samson, 
and extends through the reign of Saul to his overthrow 
and death. The Second begins with the accession of 
David, and reaches nearly to the close of his reign. 
The two Books of Kings continue the history, in 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 331 

unbroken order, to the fall of the Temple. Three 
short books recount the restoration after the Captivity. 
The Books of Chronicles contain simply genealogies 
from Adam to David, and a fuller narrative of the 
reigns of the kings of Judah only, from David to 
Zedekiah. The New Testament resumes the history, 
after a pause of four centuries, and continues it from 
the Incarnation, until the Gospel was planted in Rome, 
the great centre and metropolis of the heathen world. 

A series of histories, so continuous through four 
thousand years, from the Creation to Nero, could not 
be the chance work of twenty writers, fifteen centuries 
removed at the two extremes. A higher wisdom must 
surely have been present, and moulded every portion 
into harmony with the common design of the whole. 
The single break between Malachi and the Incarnation, 
only strengthens the proof of design. Stars wane 
before the sunrise. The gift of prophecy was sus- 
pended, and sacred history was withheld for a season, 
before that dawn of the Sun of righteousness, after 
which both of them were to reappear in richer splendour 
and beauty than before. The words of the heathen 
poet in reference to the works of creation, must apply 
here with equal force, " Mens agitat molem, et magno se 
corpore miscet." One mind, the mind of the Holy Spirit, 
must have brooded over this wide range of history, 
evolving deep harmonies of truth and wisdom out of 
the seeming chaos of confusion and spiritual darkness, 
through the long and weary course of these four 
thousand years. 

IV. Simplicity of Style is another feature of the 
sacred histories, by which they are distinguished from 
common narratives. There is no comment, and no 
rhetorical amplification. Where genealogies are given, 
there is no attempt to relieve their bareness by digress 



382 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

sions, and arts of composition. The most startling 
miracles are mentioned in the same quiet tone as the 
most commonplace occurrence. The writer seldom 
pauses, even for a moment, to direct the attention of his 
readers to the wonders he has to record. A calm, quiet, 
solemn, earnest tone marks the whole narrative. The 
writers never turn aside to deprecate suspicion, never 
pause to amplify what is marvellous, and seldom allude 
for a moment to collateral testimony. However rich in 
materials for reflection their narrative may be, they 
abstain from all moral commentary. The history is left 
to supply its own key. There is no condemnation of 
Lot, in his ready acceptance of Abraham's offer, but the 
results of his choice, too selfishly made, speak for them- 
selves. There is no direct censure of Jacob's deceit in 
the case of the blessing, but his whole life is one tale 
of silent retribution. He is deceived, in turn, in all 
that is dearest, his flocks, his wife, and his best-beloved 
son. Thus the histories of the Bible, while they are 
simple beyond all others, are also the most profound. 
The youngest child reads them with lively interest ; 
and the most experienced Christian, the moralist, and 
the divine, return to them continually, and find them 
rich with unsuspected treasures of moral truth and 
heavenly wisdom. 

What can be more simple than the history of Joseph ? 
Its truth and pathos find their way irresistibly to 
every heart. But what can be more profound than 
the lessons it conveys on the laws of duty, the ways 
of Divine Providence, and the character and work of 
the promised Bedeemer? It follows abruptly after a 
dry, unadorned genealogy of the sons of Esau, and is 
closed by a list, almost equally dry in appearance, of 
the sons and grandsons of Jacob. It bursts upon us 
at once with the completeness of a perfect drama, where 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 383 

every part conspires, simply and naturally, to the issue 
designed from the first. The dreams of Joseph are 
fulfilled through the envy of his brethren, in spite of 
their settled purpose to falsify them ; and the deep 
reality of human character and feeling, in every step 
of the narrative, renders doubly conspicuous the unfail- 
ing truth of God's promises, and the sureness of his 
counsel, who sees the end from the beginning. Amidst 
the darkness of heathenism, and the sinful perverseness 
of the chosen seed, there dawns a bright earnest of the 
promised redemption ; and the Christian, who compares 
it with the New Testament, is compelled to feel, in all 
the main steps of the narrative — Behold, a greater than 
Joseph is here ! 

This simplicity of the Bible history is one, out of 
many marks, which strongly attest its Divine inspira- 
tion. We feel, even when we are not able to explain, 
the stamp of divinity which rests upon it. Sceptical 
critics may strive to persuade themselves, or their 
readers, that the early narratives of the Bible are epic 
poems or mere legends. We read them once more, and 
the illusion disappears. In every sentence we hear the 
tones of truth and reality. The impression they leave 
on the mind, and have left on every candid and thought- 
ful reader since the hour when they were written, is 
like that made on our senses, when we gaze on the blue 
vault of heaven. They are inimitably simple, and still 
they are unfathomably profound. 

Y. The Condensation of the Bible histories is not 
less striking than their simplicity. This was required, 
indeed, by the practical object for which they are given. 
A history of the world through four thousand years, 
in which the main steps of God's moral government 
should be recorded for the lasting guidance of His 
people, required the utmost condensation, or it would 



384 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

fail to be accessible to tbe vast majority of believers. 
The structure of the Bible fulfils this necessary con- 
dition in the highest degree. It is full, everywhere, 
of the seeds of things. Its minutest incidents, on close 
examination, are found to be rich with a large variety 
of spiritual truth. They are like the images on the 
human retina ; and every speck contains, in miniature, 
a condensed landscape of heavenly wisdom. 

This condensation of the Bible narratives is doubly 
striking, if we compare them with the ■ earliest heathen 
records, the lately deciphered monuments of Egypt. Let 
us hear the description of these, which Baron Bunsen 
has given, who still regarded them as a lever which must 
overturn our faith in the truthfulness of the early histories 
of the Bible. " Where," he asks, "is there an instance 
of so many and such magnificent monuments, which 
sometimes tell us little, frequently nothing at all ? . . . 
The written character is prolix : the repetition of fixed 
phrases makes it still more so. Little is lost by occa- 
sional lacunce, but comparatively little advance is made 
by what is preserved. There are few words in a 
line ; and what is still worse, little is said in a great 
many lines. Inscriptions on public buildings were 
not intended to convey historical information. They 
consist of panegyrics on the king, and praises of the 
gods, to each of whom all imaginable titles of honour 
are given. Historical facts are thrown into the shade, 
as something paltry, casual, incidental, by the side of 
such pompous phraseology as — Lords of the World, Con- 
querors of the North, Tamers of the South, Destroyers 
of all the Unclean, and all their enemies. The case of 
the papyri is certainly different. But written history, 
such as the historical books of the Old Testament, so 
far as our knowledge of their writings goes, was cer- 
tainly unknown to the old Egyptians." 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 3S5 

The early books of the Bible are a total contrast, in 
this respect, to the previous description of the most 
ancient heathen records. The object seems to be, in 
every part, to compress into a small compass the 
largest possible amount of real information. Simple 
facts, condensed and multiplied, are the basis on 
which the whole superstructure of moral, prophetic, 
and doctrinal messages, has been reared. And this 
feature, which marks the earliest Bible histories, remains 
equally striking to their close. The Book of Acts 
stands pre-eminent above all classic histories, for the 
variety, the condensation, and the fulness of its narra- 
tive. It links itself with the whole range of the Old 
Testament Scripture, with all the facts of the G-ospels, 
the contemporary messages of the Epistles, and an 
immense variety of the facts of classical antiquity; 
while it records the successive steps by which the 
Gospel was transferred from Jerusalem to Eome, and 
the way thus prepared for long ages of Gentile privi- 
lege, and Jewish desolation. 

VI. The Pentateuch, or the Law of Moses, forms the 
firjst of four main divisions of the Bible history. Its 
historical unity is a most conspicuous feature of the 
whole. Instead of permitting us to resolve it, as some 
modern sceptics have laboured to do, into a clumsy and 
imperfect patchwork of three or four different authors, 
it requires us to see in it the work of a higher mind 
and a deeper wisdom than even that of Moses, by which 
the course of the whole narrative must have been 
secretly and powerfully controlled. 

First of all, in its general character it stands alone, 
and has no counterpart in any human production what- 
ever. It is a code of national law, inwrought into the 
texture of a regular history. Again, it is a history of 
mankind from the earliest times, briefly and compre- 

2 c 



336 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

hensively given, and blossoming into lessons of moral 
duty, and institutes of national wisdom. It roots itself 
in the soil by innumerable details, in its earlier portion ; 
and rises, at its close, into a most earnest and impressive 
series of Divine commands and exhortations. Thus it 
stoops to man, as to a little child, takes him by the 
hand, teaches him to look upward, and leads his foot- 
steps, gently, along the steep hill-side of eternal truth. 
Through a simple record of facts it rises gradually into 
the region of moral duty, of precepts, doctrines, and 
promises. It begins with the loss of Paradise through 
man's transgression ; and ends with a description of 
God's own prophet, from the height of Pisgah, looking 
out upon a glorious vision of an inheritance, like Para- 
dise, still to come. 

This double character, of facts passing into doctrine, 
command, and promise, runs through the whole Penta- 
teuch, but with a manifest progress and gradation. 
The first book is almost wholly historical, since it ends 
before Moses, the great prophet and lawgiver, was born. 
But it is not mere history. Its leading facts are made 
the basis of distinct commands and ordinances, which 
form essential parts of the law of the Lord. The history 
of the creation, in the first chapter, is closed by the 
institution of the sabbath, the first, in order, of all the 
revealed commands of Grod ; and its repetition, with 
details, in the second chapter, closes with the law of 
marriage, the grand basis of all social and domestic 
obligations. The third chapter, again, closes with a 
double appointment of human labour and conjugal 
obedience. The fourth chapter implies the institution 
of animal sacrifice. The ninth puts a seal upon the 
sacredness of man's life, by a public appointment of 
death to be the penalty of murder. The rite of circum- 
cision is enjoined to Abraham by a distinct covenant, 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 387 

while a law of tithes, and another ceremonial obser- 
vance, are indirectly imposed, in the later course of the 
patriarchal history, on the people of Israel. 

The laws, however, in Genesis, though of high im- 
portance, are comparatively few in number. In„Exodus 
they form rather less than one half of the whole book. 
In Leviticus there is only a very slight intermixture of 
narrative : it consists almost entirely of the ordinances 
of the tabernacle worship, and of other national institutes. 
The first and last chapters of Numbers have the same 
character, but the middle is chiefly historical. Deutero- 
nomy, on the other hand, is mainly a rehearsal and 
repetition of Divine laws ; but its first chapters are a 
review of the history in the wilderness, and it closes 
with an account of the parting words, and of the death 
of Moses. There is thus a plain organic unity from 
first to last. The two elements of facts and laws are 
present throughout the Pentateuch : . but the facts, in 
Genesis, are the main substance of the work, with only 
a few laws interposed ; while Deuteronomy is a book 
of laws and Divine ordinances ; but it is firmly anchored, 
both at its opening and its close, upon the great series 
of events which compose the sacred history. 

Again, the Book of Genesis, in its first chapters, 
must either be a supernatural revelation, or a mere 
legendary fiction. But every feature of legendary com- 
position is here precisely reversed. There is no trace 
of a desire to amplify doubtful and marvellous narra- 
tives, because the account goes back to the most distant 
ages, the birthday of the world. On the contrary, one 
short chapter alone is given to a general history of the 
creation, a second to the state of man before the fall, 
a third to the fall itself, a fourth to the first example of 
God's moral government over a world of sinners, a fifth 
to the genealogy of sixteen hundred years, from Adam 

2 c 2 



388 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

to Noah ; and three others to the flood, when a new- 
covenant of grace began. Three chapters more com- 
plete the whole account to the call of Abraham ; so 
that eight chapters travel rapidly over more than two 
thousand years. 

With the call of Abraham a new dispensation of 
mercy began. Here, therefore, the history expands at 
once into larger proportions. Forty chapters unfold 
rather less than three centuries of the patriarchal 
history. A further expansion ensues after the call 
of Moses, and fifty historical chapters are occupied 
with an interval of forty years only, till his death. 
There is thus an evident harmony and proportion of 
historical development in the whole Pentateuch, which 
severs it widely from all the heathen legends ; and is 
a clear sign that it " came not by the will of man," but 
that Moses composed it under the guidance of a higher 
wisdom, and " spake as he was moved by the Holy 
Ghost." 

Let us contrast it, for example, with Manetho and 
the Egyptian monuments. The history of that famous 
Egyptian priest has perished, except two or three short 
fragments in Josephus. But we learn, from an extract 
in Eusebius, that it professed to begin with reigns of 
the gods, occupying 13,900 years, and four dynasties of 
Manes, or souls of the dead, and Heroes, who reigned 
over Egypt for 11,000 years more, and were followed 
by Menes, the first mortal or human king. All these 
are described as Egyptian reigns. They were designed 
evidently to flatter the national vanity and pride. 
There is no trace of any message in the history, to 
remind the Egyptians of their brotherhood with the 
foreign races they were accustomed to hate or despise. 
What a total contrast to the simple record in the first 
chapter of Genesis ! The very first lesson taught to 






THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 3S9 



the Jews in their national law, the immediate gift of 
the Grod of Israel, was their brotherhood with the 
whole race of mankind ; with whom they shared, in 
Adam, a common sentence of guilt and shame ; and, 
both in Adam and Noah, a common message of hope 
and coming redemption. 

The historical interweaving of the whole narrative 
is another feature, which shows the Divine wisdom by 
which it was framed. Every device of scepticism is 
baffled, when it strives to rend^ asunder the seamless 
robe of this fundamental record of patriarchal history. 
In the latter half of Genesis, for example, from the 
birth of Isaac onward, we find not less than a hundred 
retrospective allusions to the previous portion of the 
narrative, and most of them of a distinct and specific 
kind. Some are direct, others indirect and compara- 
tively latent. Some refer to a single passage, and 
others to the combined result of several statements. 
The same character of retrospective allusion runs 
through the four later books, and compacts the whole 
Pentateuch so firmly together, that no critical artifice 
can succeed in parting it asunder. It would need 
little more, to disprove every variety of the document 
hypothesis, than to print separately the different 
alleged documents ; when it would be seen at once that 
they were merely torn and broken fragments of the Pen- 
tateuch, and could have no claim to form a complete and 
independent whole. The firmness of structure, in these 
early books of Scripture, is like that which the skilful 
architect gives to the lowest courses of the lighthouse, 
which has to resist the incessant surging of the waves 
of the ocean, and to bear aloft, on its summit, the 
beacon -light, by which ten thousand mariners may be 
rescued from fatal shipwreck, and find it a star of hope 
and peace amidst the darkness and the storm. 



390 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

YII. In the later books of the Old Testament, from 
Joshua to Nehemiah, the historical unity, though rather 
less conspicuous than in the Pentateuch, is not less 
real. The diversity of the writers, and the interval 
of more than a thousand years from the first to the 
last, make this feature, in some respects, even more 
striking than in the books of Moses, and compels us to 
read in it the result of a higher wisdom. 

The Book of Joshua is a history of the conquest, the 
fulfilment of the prophecies in the law, and the basis 
of all the later history of the chosen people. It con- 
tains everything essential to such a record, and nothing 
superfluous. First, we have the passage of Jordan, and 
the renewal of the national covenant. This is followed 
by four main steps in the conquest, the fall of Jericho 
and of Ai, and the defeat of a great southern and a 
great northern confederacy of the Canaanites. There 
is, next, a formal catalogue of the kings and districts 
that were subdued. The record of the conquest is 
followed by the division of the land. And first, there 
is a repeated summary of the allotment by Moses to the 
trans-Jordanic tribes. Then we have the fulfilment of 
the promise to Caleb, and the allotments to the two 
leading tribes of Judah and Joseph. Next follows the 
supplementary allotment to the seven remaining tribes, 
with a list of the towns and villages in each portion, 
closed by Joshua's own private inheritance. The eccle- 
siastical arrangements follow, the appointment of the 
cities of refuge, and those of the Levites. The eastern 
tribes are then dismissed to their inheritance beyond 
Jordan. Last of all, Joshua, before his death, solemnly 
recounts to the people the mercies of God, and twice 
renews with them the national covenant. 

The last chapter illustrates, in a striking manner, the 
way in which the whole series of sacred history is 



THE HISTOEICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 391 

bound together. It goes back, in its review of the 
past, to the days of Terah, the father of Abraham, and 
mentions his idolatry, which is only implied in Genesis, 
in the land of Chaldea. It mentions next, in succession, 
the call of Abraham, the birth of Isaac, and of the sons of 
Isaac, Esau and Jacob, the inheritance of Esau in Mount 
Seir, and the descent of Jacob and his sons into Egypt, 
forming a brief summary of four-fifths of the Book of 
Genesis. In three verses more it gives an abridgment 
of Exodus, and in the last clause, of the book of Num- 
bers. In the eighth verse we have a brief repetition 
of the twenty-first of Numbers, and in verses 9, 10, of 
the striking episode of Balak and Balaam. Three other 
verses describe the conquest itself, and the fulfilment 
of the promises in Deuteronomy. The mention of the 
oak or pillar, and of the sanctuary in Shechem, refers 
us to the history, in Gen. xxxiii., of Jacob's purchase 
from the Shechemites ; the burial of Joshua, to the pre- 
vious mention of his inheritance in the middle of the 
book ; and that of the bones of Joseph, to three passages 
in Genesis and Exodus (Gen. xxxiii. 18-20, 24-26; 
Exod. xiii. 19), so as to bind together, by these retro- 
spective allusions, the whole series of the sacred history. 
The Book of Judges, which reaches from the death 
of Joshua to the Book of Samuel, when a new era of 
the theocracy began, has a distinct unity of its own. 
The successive relapses into idolatry, and the captivities 
to the heathen, shewed the need of a righteous king, 
and that the true rest was not yet come. The book 
begins with a review of those failures in obedience to 
the Divine commands, which contained the seeds of 
later degeneracy and rebellion. Then follows a general 
summary of the whole period, in its double aspect of 
repeated apostasy, and renewed help and deliverance. 
The separate periods are then briefly recorded in the 



392 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

order of time, from the first captivity under a king of 
Mesopotamia to the partial deliverance wrought by Sam- 
son at his death. The history then reverts to two main 
illustrations of the national sins of Israel in the next 
generation after Joshua and the elders, and closes them 
with a remark which contains the intended moral of 
the whole history, and made it a virtual prophecy of 
the national revolution which was soon to follow — " In 
those days there was no king in Israel : every man did 
that which was right in his own eyes." 

The First and Second Books of Samuel have a similar 
unity of design. They contain the steps of the great 
transition from the earlier form of theocracy, under 
judges, to the permanent choice and establishment of 
the royal line of David. The former contains the suc- 
cessive changes, by which their judicial honour was taken 
from Eli and his priestly house, and transferred, first 
to Samuel, then to Saul, and finally to David, the centre 
of a new era of promise and blessing. The Second 
Book is occupied with the forty years of his reign, just 
as that of Numbers with the forty years in the wilder- 
ness. The kingdom was settled by covenant in David's 
line ; the ark, which the sin of Eli's sons had betrayed 
to the Philistines, was brought to Jerusalem ; and pre- 
paration was made, on the site where the pestilence was 
arrested, for building the temple of God. 

The Books of Kings continue the history through the 
reign of Solomon, and the division of the two kingdoms, 
down to the reign of Zedekiah, and the fall of the 
temple. In their opening chapters we have the build- 
ing of the temple, and the reign of Solomon, when the 
queen of the South came from the ends of the earth to 
hear his wisdom. The theocracy, or typical kingdom 
of God, then reached its climax of strength and beauty, 
and began quickly to reveal its imperfection, and hasten 



THE HISTOKICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 393 

into decay. The rest of these books contains the 
history of the schism, which rent Israel from Judah, 
and continued till the ten tribes were led away captive 
to Assyria, and Judah to Babylon. There is a clear 
unity of style in this portion of the history. It is also 
the stem which supports the greater part of the pro- 
phecies of the Old Testament. Three of the greater, 
and nine of the minor prophets, belong to this period. 
To make the connection still more intimate, three 
chapters of the Second Book of Kings are repeated, with 
very slight change, in the midst of Isaiah's prophecies, 
and two others are repeated in the book of Jeremiah's 
prophecies, at its very close. 

The history is continued still further, in a second 
series, on the return from the captivity. The Books of 
Chronicles begin from the Creation, and reach to the 
Captivity of Babylon. They are then continued by the 
Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the last two verses of 
Chronicles, and the first two of Ezra, being the same. 
The nine chapters of genealogy from Adam to David, 
though they contain no history, supply copious materials 
to confirm the Mosaic narrative, and the actual truth 
of the later records. The remainder of the First Book 
gives fuller details than the Books of Samuel with 
regard to the last.years of David, and the whole priestly 
economy. The Second Book confines itself, almost 
entirely, to the kingdom of Judah. In the first and 
leading series of sacred history, the prominent feature 
is the course of national sin, by which the kingdom of 
David sank into ruin. But in Chronicles the main 
subject is the mercy of God to the people of Israel, and 
to the chosen line of David, issuing at length in that 
decree of Cyrus, by which the prophecies of Isaiah and 
Jeremiah were fulfilled. 

The three short Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, 



394 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

which continue this supplementary history, and bring 
it down through a whole century after the Keturn, have 
a character of their own. The grandeur of the old 
covenant has ceased. It has decayed, and grown old, 
and is ready to vanish away. No miracle is recorded 
in this last period of the sacred history. The un- 
finished air of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah must 
strike every thoughtful reader. They are a little pro- 
montory, jutting out from the earlier times of the law 
and the prophets, and nearly severed from them by 
the Captivity — where hope might plant its foot more 
firmly, and look forward, across generations of delay, 
to the promised coming of Messiah. The prophetic 
books, which belong to the same period, contain some 
of the clearest predictions of his Advent. Side by side 
with Ezra and Nehemiah, as if to show that their un- 
finished character is the result of design, we have a 
history, in the Book of Esther, which has never been 
surpassed, in dramatic unity and power, by any fiction 
which human fancy has devised. It has a marked 
resemblance of character to the history of Joseph at the 
close of the Book of Genesis. In each of them the 
inspired narrative rises into a sacred drama, complete 
and harmonious in every part, of which the main pur- 
pose is the deliverance and preservation of the chosen 
people. In the Book of Nehemiah, again, we have a 
summary of the whole course of Jewish history through 
fifteen hundred years, from the call of Abraham to the 
time when the covenant was renewed after the return 
from captivity. Thus, in two contemporary books, 
wholly different in character, and in two opposite ways, 
a signal unity is impressed on the whole series of Old 
Testament histories, from the times of Abraham and 
Joseph, and the old Pharaohs, to those of Nehemiah, 
Esther, and Mordecai, under the Persian kings. 



THE HISTOEICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 395 

The break in the history, after Nehemiah, only com- 
pletes the proof of this all-pervading unity of design. 
The waning of the elder dispensation, and the with- 
drawal, through four hundred years, of sacred history 
and prophecy, was adapted, in the highest degree, to 
render the dawn of the Gospel more impressive. 

VIII. The Four Gospels are the next main division 
of the sacred history. And here the marks of Divine 
wisdom are still more conspicuous than in the narratives 
of the Old Testament. 

The Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, are 
the central object of Old Testament prophecy, the sum 
and substance of the Christian Faith. The great end 
for which all written revelation is given required that 
these should be placed in clear and full relief. Here, 
therefore, and here only, in the whole range of inspired 
messages, we have four parallel and collateral histories. 
In the Old Testament two is the highest number of 
such parallel series, or a bare sufficiency under that rule 
of the law — " In the mouth of two or three witnesses 
shall every word be established." But here, in the 
Gospels, the legal provision is exceeded. Four testimo- 
nies have been provided, and not two or three only ; so 
that they fulfil the description of our Lord, and give to 
us " good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and 
running over." 

But the same rule of the Law, when compared with 
the Gospels, yields a further sign of the deep wisdom 
which presided secretly in their composition. Two 
witnesses are barely sufficient, but three are ample, for 
confirmation alone. When a first record, then, has 
been made, and one testimony given, a second would 
naturally have, for its chief purpose, to confirm, and 
not to amplify and extend it. A third would be less 
needful, though still desirable, for mere confirmation of 



396 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

the others, and might reasonably be expected to ratify 
and to supplement their statements, almost in equal 
measure. A fourth, if given at all, plainly exceeds the 
limit named in the law. Its main object, we may infer, 
would be to supplement and enlarge the previous narra- 
tives, since it would be almost superfluous for mere con- 
firmation of them alone. 

Now if we take the Gospels in the order in which 
they now stand, and in which they have been placed 
from the first, such is precisely the relation which exists 
between them. St. Mark, the second, has only two or 
three incidents not recorded by St. Matthew, though 
the different arrangement in one large portion, and the 
far greater fulness of the details, preserve it from all 
suspicion of being a mere summary. Its aim, through- 
out, is to confirm St. Matthew, and not to supply facts 
wholly new. The Gospel of St. Luke combines both 
objects in almost an equal proportion. In the account 
of our Lord's infancy, it supplements the narrative of 
St. Matthew, and hardly one incident is the same. In 
seven chapters that follow, it confirms the evidence of 
its two predecessors, and agrees further with St. Mark in 
the arrangement. Ten chapters after these are mainly 
a supplement to the previous narratives ; six others are 
in the main confirmatory, and the last chapter, again, is 
supplementary, and consists mainly of new matter. 
The Gospel of St. John, on the contrary, is supplemen- 
tary from first to last. Except in the account of the 
miracle of the loaves, and some leading events in Passion 
Week, it contains information wholly new, which is not 
to be found in any of the three earlier Gospels. This 
gradation of character, in fulfilling the double object of 
confirming earlier testimonies, and of giving further 
information, is a secret, but powerful evidence, of the 
deep wisdom which moulded the separate narratives, so 



THE HISTORICAL UXITY OF THE BIBLE. 397 

as to fulfil most effectually the end for which they were 
given. 

The silence of the Gospels with regard to our Lord's 
infancy, and the interval before his ministry began, is 
another mark of that secret wisdom of the Holy Spirit, 
which controlled the evangelists. Apocryphal writings 
have many legends of this obscure period ; but the 
Gospels themselves pass it over in reverent and ex- 
pressive silence. They seem thus to echo the words of 
that prophecy, which Isaiah had given concerning our 
blessed Lord — " He shall not strive, nor cry, nor lift up 
his voice in the streets." A lesson of quietness, humil- 
ity, and reverence, most alien from the tone of religious 
forgeries, is hereby inwrought into the whole texture of 
the sacred history. 

The harmony and apparent discrepancies of the 
Gospels are another proof, when rightly viewed, of 
their common inspiration. Two things are plainly 
required, in order that they might fulfil in the highest 
degree the great object for which a Divine revelation is 
made. There must be, on the one hand, such a sub- 
stantial and manifest unity, as to give them the force 
of concurrent evidence. On the other hand, there 
needed such a measure of distinctness in each testi- 
mony, as to clear their general consent from all sus- 
picion of being artificial and collusive, 

Xow the four Gospels satisfy this double condition in 
a singular manner. The history of criticism, and of the 
theories of their origin, which have divided the opinions 
of the most learned and diligent students, is alone a 
sufficient proof of the fact. One large class of critics, 
induced by the features of close resemblance, have 
laboured to complete a theory of the formation of the 
three first Gospels from a mechanical combination of six 
or seven earlier documents. Others, again, from the 



398 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

multiplied diversities between them, have strongly main- 
tained a view diametrically opposite, that they grew, 
quite independently, out of oral tradition, and that no 
one Evangelist had seen the work of any other. The 
zealous maintenance, by many learned writers, of both 
of these opposite views, is a clear sign that the Gospels 
combine, in the fullest measure, the marks of a plural, 
and of a concurrent testimony. Had they differed more 
widely, they would have failed to confirm each other's 
evidence, and their authority would have been weak- 
ened and destroyed by the presence of undeniable 
contradictions. Had their agreement been more com- 
plete, and free from all divergence, they would have 
lost their character of a fourfold testimony, and have 
failed to satisfy one main purpose for which the 
history was conveyed to the church in this peculiar 
form. 

Again, the unity of the whole Bible history may be 
seen in the frequent allusions made in the Gospels to 
the facts of the Old Testament. Among those which 
are referred to, and incidentally confirmed by their 
testimony, are the creation of Adam and Eve, (Matt, 
xix. 4,) the first institution of the Sabbath, the ordinance 
of marriage, the guilt and crime of the first Tempter, 
the murder of Abel, the wickedness in the days of 
Noah, the Flood, the law of retribution for murder, 
after the Flood; the genealogy of the patriarchs, the 
destruction of Sodom, the history of Lot's wife, the 
covenant of circumcision, the expulsion of Ishmael, the 
oath of God to Abraham, the vision of Jacob, his 
purchase of ground at Shechem, the birth of Pharez 
and Zarah, all within the Book of Genesis. In Exodus, 
the words to Moses at the bush, the appointment of the 
Passover, the gift of manna from heaven, the Divine 
communication of the Law by Moses, the ordinance of 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 390 

cleansing for the leper, the sacrifices in the tabernacle 
on the sabbath-day, are all the objects of direct men- 
tion, or plain allusion. We have also two genealogies, 
one of which reaches back to Abraham, and the other 
even to Adam, and nearly a hundred distinct quotations 
from the Old Testament. 

But while the Gospels are thus linked, retrospec- 
tively with all the earlier histories, they are united in 
the closest manner with the later narrative in the 
Book of Acts, and with the Apostolic Epistles, and the 
Book of Revelation. St. Matthew is especially the 
means of securing an intimate relation between the Old 
and the New Testament. St. Mark unites together St. 
Matthew and St. Luke ; since the incidents, with three 
slight exceptions, are entirely those of St. Matthew, 
and the order, with hardly an excejDtion, the same as 
in St. Luke. The third Gospel, again, is continued by 
St. Luke himself in the Book of Acts, and thus forms a 
link with the later history; while St. John's Gospel 
unites the evangelical history with the Epistles and the 
Prophecies, because three epistles, and the only pro- 
phetical book of the New Testament have this Apostle 
for their author. 

Besides these more technical characters of the Gospels, 
in which they may be seen clearly to carry on one great, 
consistent scheme of sacred history, there are others of 
a still deeper kind, which never fail to impress the 
humble and reverent reader. There is a calmness and 
quietness of tone, a transparent, unadorned simplicity, 
which makes us forget the writer in the contemplation 
of the glorious object he sets before us. Like Moses 
and Elias on the mount of transfiguration, the evan- 
gelists themselves disappear from view, and are lost, 
that Jesus their Lord maybe seen alone. Nowhere can 
we see more plainly the force of those words, which 



400 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

belong to all the inspired messages of God, that " the 
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Every 
chapter, and every verse, converges here on one great 
object, and seems to repeat the words of the Baptist to 
his disciples : " Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh 
away the sin of the world." 

IX. The Book of Acts, the last of the four main 
divisions of sacred history, and by far the shortest in 
extent, retains the same character, and exhibits no 
less clearly the historical unity which pervades the 
whole. 

And first, the book has a remarkable unity in its 
general outline, from its beginning to its close. Its 
subject is the planting of the Gospel in the heathen 
world. It opens, accordingly, with the promise of 
Christ to his Apostles — " Ye shall be witnesses unto 
me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." And it 
closes with the most definite point in the completion of 
this great work, when the apostle of the Gentiles 
arrived at Rome, the metropolis of heathenism, and after 
summoning the Jews to a conference, denounced their 
national unbelief, and proclaimed the transfer of the 
rejected blessing to the heathen — " Be it known there- 
fore, unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto 
the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." Every part 
concurs in describing the steps by which this great 
change was fulfilled. We see the Gospel spreading, 
first, from the Hebrews to the Hellenists at Jerusalem ; 
then, on the murder of Stephen, from Judaea to Samaria, 
while the first step was taken towards a national con- 
version from heathenism by the baptism of the Ethiopian 
eunuch. Then follows the conversion of Saul, the des- 
tined Apostle of the Gentiles, and that of Cornelius at 
Ceesarea, the first Gentile Roman convert, in whose case 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 401 

the partition wall began to be broken down. There is 
mention of the reverent submission of the Jewish 
believers to this unexpected change, and the formation 
of the first Gentile church at Antioch. After' the 
murder of the Apostle James by the Jews, there follows 
at once the first missionary journey of Paul and 
Barnabas to Cyprus and Asia Minor. After their 
return, and the decree of the council, affirming the 
freedom of Gentile believers from the law of Moses, the 
transition is complete. The church of the Jews, and 
the other Apostles, pass entirely out of sight. We have 
the regular course of St. Paul's ministry, in Asia, in 
Macedonia and Achaia, and at Ephesus ; till the per- 
secuting malice of the Jews completes the work his zeal 
had begun, and transfers him, a prisoner for the Gentiles, 
from Jerusalem and Csesarea to the imperial city, which 
was to form the centre of the church's history, for good 
and for evil, through the whole course of the Gentile 
dispensation. 

The book is called familiarly the Acts of the Apostles. 
But the mention of the apostles is kept subordinate in 
every part to the one design of the whole. After the 
list in the first chapter, no mention occurs, in its whole 
course, of any other among the Twelve than Peter, John, 
and the elder and younger James. The foremost of 
them, St. Peter, disappears silently from view after his 
miraculous rescue from the malice of Herod. No light 
whatever is thrown upon his later journeys ; and 
the last sentence concerning his travels and labours 
is merely this : " He departed, and went to another 
place." He appears again in the council at Jerusalem ; 
but after its decision, a veil is drawn over his life, 
and that of the other eleven ; and St. Paul alone, the 
Apostle of the Gentiles, becomes the subject of the 
whole narrative. This marked exclusion of events 

2 D 



402 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUailT. 

which were not essential to the main object, is a proof 
of the Divine wisdom which controlled the sacred pen- 
man in the composition of the work, and rendered it, by 
its simplicity, condensation, and unity, a worthy com- 
pletion of the long series of inspired history. 

But this unity of design is no less perceptible in the 
connection between this book, and the rest of the New 
and the Old Testaments. And here we may notice, 
first, its subordination to the Gospels. We have four 
distinct narratives of the life and death of our Lord, but 
one only, little more than one-fourth of their combined 
length, to record the later history of the church for more 
than thirty years. The three years of our Lord's minis- 
try occupy more than three times the space, in the New 
Testament narrative, of the thirty years which follow. 
For Christ himself, his life, death, and resurrection, are 
the great sum of the whole Gospel message, and the 
history of the Church is kept in strict and beautiful 
subordination to the history of the heavenly Bride- 
groom. 

Again, the book divides naturally into two main 
portions of nearly equal length, the second of which 
begins with the first council at Jerusalem. The first 
of these abounds in references to the earlier portions of 
Scripture. In the four first chapters alone, there are 
eight or ten quotations from the Old Testament, or 
allusions to its statements, in direct confirmation of 
their truth. The words of two Psalms are declared to 
be the words of the Holy Ghost. The ordinance of the 
first fruits, on the day of Pentecost, receives its figura- 
tive fulfilment ; and the confusion of tongues at Babel 
finds its New Testament contrast, and Divine antidote, 
in the gift of tongues at Jerusalem. Four different 
prophecies are quoted in the first sermon of St. Peter, 
and declared to be then receiving their fulfilment. His 



THE HISTORICAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 403 

next discourse appeals generally to " all the prophets, 
which have been since the world began," and again to 
the words of Samuel and the later prophets ; but more 
distinctly to the covenant with Abraham after the 
sacrifice of Isaac, and to the prediction of Moses in 
Deuteronomy, shortly before his death. In the next 
chapter we have a quotation from Psalm cxviii., an 
allusion to the first record of creation, and a further 
quotation from the second Psalm. Besides these, two 
distinct summaries of the Old Testament are embodied 
in the narrative, the first in the apology of St. Stephen 
at Jerusalem, and the second in St Paul's discourse at 
Antioch in Pisidia. The truth of the Old Testament 
is the common basis, on which the first martyr, full of 
the Holy Spirit, and the greatest of the Apostles, equally 
rest their appeal, when contending earnestly for the 
truth of the Gospel. Thus the Book of Acts, by the 
whole character of its earlier history, is dovetailed 
inseparably with all the previous histories in the word 
of God. 

The second or later division has an entirely different 
character. Only two quotations from the Old Testa- 
nent are found in it, one of them from Amos, quoted 
by St. James in the council at Jerusalem, and the other 
from Isaiah, quoted by St. Paul to the Jews at Rome, 
like a mournful keynote at the close of the sacred 
history. But on the other hand, the points of com- 
parison with general and classical history are here 
greatly multiplied ; and the coincidences with the 
historical allusions in the writings of St. Paul are so 
abundant, as to form a most convincing and irresistible 
proof of the genuineness of the epistles, and the truth 
and fidelity of the sacred narrative. These chapters 
form thus the outmost boughs of the inspired history, 
and bear upon them most abundantly the golden 

2 d 2 



404 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

fruitage of heavenly truth, unfolded in the didactic and 
doctrinal portions of the New Testament. 

The facts, thus briefly examined, point clearly to one 
conclusion. This connected series of history, with one 
single break, constructed on one uniform plan, and 
almost on the same scale, from the creation onward 
through four thousand years ; confirmed by all foreign 
evidence in its later portions, where alone heathen 
records yield any clear light, and self-sustained in all 
the rest by its own truthfulness and transparent sim- 
plicity of style ; expanding itself in that generation 
when the law was given, and in a less degree when the 
forefather and type of Messiah came to the throne, and 
most of all, during the three years of our Lord's 
ministry ; but in all the other parts moving calmly, 
swiftly along, indulging in no comments, recording the 
minutest details, and the most startling wonders in the 
same tone of simple dignity, and unadorned plainness 
of speech, and interwoven, from first to last, with innu- 
merable mutual references, — is a fact wholly unique in 
the literature of mankind. The Bible, in its historical 
unity, stands alone, and without a rival. One Mind 
may be clearly seen in its whole course, by whose 
wisdom its various writers were guided and controlled, 
so as to furnish, at the long interval of fifteen hundred 
years, a simple and connected outline of the moral 
government of the world — a scheme of mercy which 
began in Paradise, but first blossomed out, and began to 
yield more abundant fruit, in the resurrection and ascen- 
sion of our Lord, the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit, and 
the spread of the Gospel throughout the moral wilder- 
nesses of the heathen world. 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 405 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 

The doctrinal, even still more than the historical unity 
of the Bible, bears evidence to its inspiration and 
Divine authorship. Thirty-nine books in the Old 
Testament, and twenty-seven in the New, the work of 
forty different writers, are here collected into one 
volume, though their first composition is spread over 
the long interval of fifteen hundred years. They were 
all composed in times of heathen darkness, when the 
most civilized people and mightiest empires of the 
world were bowing down to stocks and stones, or offer- 
ing polluted worship to " gods many, and lords many," 
the impersonations of passion, strife, jealousy, and 
every impure and hateful lust. The language, the 
style, the character, the special object, no less than the 
date of these books, are all widely different. But the 
great outlines of truth are everywhere the same. There 
is development, but no discrepancy. There are partial 
contrasts, adding life to the whole by the diversity of 
the parts, but no contradiction. A manifest and un- 
deniable harmony of thought, tone, and doctrine, 
animates and pervades the whole. The view of man 
is everywhere the same ; that he is the creature of the 
living Grod, accountable to his Maker ; fallen, but not 
hopeless ; guilty, but not left in despair ; the subject of 
a present curse, but still within reach of the richest 



406 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

blessing ; corrupt and impure, but capable of restora- 
tion to the Divine favour and image ; placed under a 
penal sentence of death, but capable of attaining a 
blessed immortality. The doctrine concerning God is 
everywhere the same ; that He is one, and there is no 
other than He ; that all the gods of the heathen are 
idols, but the Lord made the heavens ; that He is 
almighty, all-wise, good, perfect, holy, merciful, ever- 
lasting, the Maker of all things, and the Judge of all 
men ; a pure, invisible Spirit, who must be worshipped 
in spirit and in truth. The revealed way of salvation 
is everywhere the same, by faith in God, and in the 
promise of a great and powerful Redeemer, atonement 
by sacrifice, and the substitution of the guiltless for the 
guilty, forgiveness procured by the shedding of blood, 
and inward renewal of heart, the fruit of that forgive- 
ness, by which the soul is renewed after the image 
of God, in righteousness, holiness, and truth. The 
practical lessons of duty are also the same in every 
part, faith in the promises of God's mercy through an 
atoning Saviour, working by love — the love of God 
supremely, and the love of all mankind. 

It would require a large volume to unfold thoroughly 
this unity of the Bible, from Genesis, through the 
Psalms, the Prophets, the Gospels, and Epistles, to the 
Apocalypse, in all the main doctrines of the Christian 
faith. It is only by means of a diligent and prolonged 
study of the Scriptures, that the full impression of this 
deep and real harmony can be received into the mind. 
I shall merely endeavour to show, by the selection of 
a few passages, how each main doctrine runs, like a 
golden woof, through the whole series of these Divine 
messages ; and then illustrate the real harmony, amidst 
partial contrast, or fancied contradiction, between the 
teaching of the Old and New Testament. 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 407 

I. The doctrinal harmony of the Bible, from first to 
last, maj be traced clearly in its explicit statements on 
all the main topics of religious faith. 

1. The first revealed truth is the fact of creation, or 
that all things were formed by the will and power 
of one true and living God. The Bible opens its 
message with these words: "In the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth." This great truth 
had been entirely lost from view in the reign of 
23olytheism and fable ; and chaos, night and Erebus, 
replaced the conception, of the creative will of the 
Almighty. It is equally lost in the speculations of a 
pantheistic philosophy, of which there are too many 
specimens in modern times. But the testimony of the 
Scriptures to this great truth is consistent, uniform, and 
unvaried, from first to last. 

First, when the judgment of the Flood was sent upon 
the world, it is announced in these words — " I will 
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the 
earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and 
the fowls of the air ; for it repenteth me that I have 
made them." And again " In the image of God made 
he man." 

In the first mission of Moses, the truth is indirectly 
taught, in the Divine expostulation : — " Who hath made 
man's mouth, or who maketh the dumb or deaf, or the 
seeing or the blind ? have not I the Lord ?" 

When the Law was given on Mount Sinai, this doctrine 
was publicly embodied in the fourth commandment. 
" For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day : 
wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed 
it." The statement is repeated in Exodus xxxi. — " For 
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth," and again 
in Deuteronomy, in two or three varied forms. It is 



408 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

found in twenty different Psalms, gives its tone to 
the Book of Job, and runs through all the Proverbs. 
It appears, in the most various associations, in the pro- 
phecies of Isaiah. " At that day shall a man look to 
his Maker." (xvii. 7.) "Ye have not looked unto the 
Maker thereof, nor had respect unto Him that fashioned 
it long ago." (xxii. 11.) " Shall the work say of him 
that made it, He made me not ? or shall the thing formed 
say of him that formed it, He had no understanding?" 
(xxix. 16.) " Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who 
hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by 
number ?" " The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator 
of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary : 
there is no searching of his understanding." (Isa. xl. 28.) 
" Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, 
and stretched them out ; he that spread forth the earth, 
and that which cometh out of it ; he that giveth breath 
unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk 
thereon." (xlii. 5.) The voice of Jeremiah is the same 
in his earnest prayer : " Ah, Lord God, thou hast made 
heaven and earth by thy great power and stretched-out 
arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee !" And that 
of Zechariah : " The burden of the word of the Lord, 
which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foun- 
dation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man with- 
in him." 

The same great doctrine runs through the New Testa- 
ment. We find it in the opening of the fourth Gospel, 
applied to the Word, the only begotten Son of the 
Father : " All things were made by him, and without 
him was not anything made that was made." It 
appears in our Lord's thanksgiving, in the first and 
third Gospels : " I thank thee, Father, Lord of 
heaven and earth !" and in his reply to the Pharisees : 
" Have ye not read that he which made them in the 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 409 

beginning, made them male and female ?" In the Book 
of Acts it appears in every part. In the thanksgiving 
and prayer of the early church : " Lord, thou art God, 
which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and 
all that in them is." (iv. 24.) In the words of the 
apostles at Lystra : " Sirs, why do ye such things ? 
We are men of like passions with you, and preach that 
ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, 
who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things 
therein." (xiv. 15.) And again, in St. Paul's discourse 
at Athens : " God that made the world and all things 
therein, seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth 
not in temples made with hands." And, not to mul- 
tiply quotations from the Epistles, it meets us repeatedly 
in the closing book of the canon, in the song of the 
heavenly elders, in the oath of the mighty Angel, and 
in the proclamation of the everlasting Gospel by another 
angel to the idolaters of the last days : " Fear God and 
give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come, 
and worship him which made the heaven and the earth, 
and the sea, and the fountains of water." 

2. The imity of God is another doctrine, which stands 
out in full relief in every part of the Bible. In the 
earlier books it is doubly conspicuous, when we contrast 
the word of God with the monuments and remains of 
Egypt, and the wild and dark fancies of polytheism 
throughout the ancient world. " I am the Lord thy 
God, thou shalt have no other gods but me." " Thou 
shalt worship no other god, for Jehovah, whose name 
is Jealous, is a jealous God." " Unto thee it was 
showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is 
God, there is none else beside him." " Hear, Israel, 
the Lord our God is one Lord." 

The same truth runs through the Psalms and the 
Prophets, and forms a prominent character of their 



410 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

teaching. " All the gods of the nations are idols, but 
the Lord made the heavens." " Confounded be all they 
that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols : 
worship him, all ye gods." " I am the Lord; that is 
my name ; and my glory will I not give to another, 
neither my praise to graven images." " Before me 
there was no god formed, neither shall there be after 
me. I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no 
Saviour." " Is there a god beside me ? Yea, there 
is no God, I know not any." " The Lord is the true 
God, he is the living God and an everlasting King : at 
his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall 
not be able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye 
say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens 
and earth, shall perish from the earth, and from under 
these heavens." 

In the New Testament, while the doctrine of three 
Persons in the Godhead is taught, the Divine unity, in 
contrast to the many gods of heathenism, is maintained 
with equal clearness. So the Apostle writes to the 
Corinthians : " For though there be that are called 
gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods 
many and lords many, yet to us there is but one God, 
the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him ; and 
one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we ! 
by him." And again, to Timothy : " For there is one 
God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man 
Christ Jesus." 

3. The fall and corruption of man is another truth, 
which meets us equally in every part of Scripture. It 
is seen in the account of the world before the flood. 
" And God saw that the- wickedness of man was great 
in the earth, and that every imagination of man's heart 
was only evil, and that continually." It reappears in 
the blessing after the flood : "I will not curse the 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 411 

ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of 
man's heart is evil from his youth." We read it, 
further, in the growth of idolatry after the flood, in 
the guilt of the cities of the plain, and their destruction, 
and the sentence pronounced upon the Amorites, 
Gen. xv., with the reason assigned for delaying the 
judgment. The history of the Exodus is one ceaseless 
illustration of its truth. Moses sums up his review of 
the conduct of Israel in the words : " Ye have been 
rebellious against the Lord since the day that I knew 
you." David makes the penitent confession : " Behold, 
I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother con- 
ceive me." Ezra exclaims in the same spirit : " my 
God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, 
my God ; for our iniquities are increased over our heads, 
and our trespass is grown up to the heavens." The 
last prophecy of the Old Testament is one ceaseless 
expostulation with the sin and stubbornness of the 
chosen people. The Gospels open with the warning of 
the Baptist : "0 generation of vipers, who hath warned 
you to flee from the wrath to come ?" and towards their 
close they re-echo the description in those solemn words 
of the Saviour : " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, 
how can ye escape the damnation of hell ?" The open- 
ing chapters of the Epistle to the Eomans are full of 
the same truth. The Apostle quotes evidence to con- 
firm it from six different Psalms, and from Isaiah's pro- 
phecies, and then draws the universal inference, — " Now 
we know that whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them 
who are under the law, that every mouth may be 
stopped, and all the world become guilty before God.' r 

4. The doctrine of a Redeemer, by whom deliverance 
from the curse of sin would be given to men, is another 
truth, which runs through the whole of Scripture. 
" The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." It 



/ 



412 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

meets us in the first account of the fall, where the Seed 
of the woman is announced, who should bruise the head 
of the serpent. It reappears in the promise to Abraham 
of that Seed, who should possess the gate of his enemies, 
and in whom all the nations of the earth would be 
blessed. It is announced by the dying Jacob, in the 
words — " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor 
the lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, 
and to him shall the gathering of the people be." It is 
implied in the types of Isaac's sacrifice, and of Joseph's 
exile, sufferings, and exaltation. It is seen in the pro- 
mise of the prophet like unto Moses, and in the types 
of the paschal lamb, the smitten rock, from which 
there flowed living water, the scapegoat, and the brazen 
serpent. It meets us in the Psalms and Prophets with 
growing clearness, and the titles, King, Immanuel, 
the Prince of Peace, the Man of sorrows, the Branch, 
Messiah the Prince, the Son of Man, the King of Zion, 
the Shepherd, Jehovah's Fellow, the Messenger of the 
Covenant, the Sun of righteousness, reveal the various 
attributes of grace and holiness, which were to be 
manifested in the person and work of the Incarnate Son 
of God. 

5. The way of salvation by faith is another doctrine 
in which all the sacred writers conspire with a striking 
unity. " By faith Abel offered unto God a more, ac- 
ceptable sacrifice than Cain" (Heb. xi. 3). Abraham 
" believed God, and it was counted to him for righteous- 
ness " (Gen. xv. 6). This fundamental doctrine, though 
specially unfolded by St. Paul, runs through all the 
intermediate books of Scripture. Trust in God, in the 
Old Testament, and faith in Christ, its equivalent in 
the New, is everywhere proclaimed to be the pathway 
of life and salvation. Man fell through unbelief, and 
by faith alone he can be recovered. This great truth 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 413 

appears equally in the books of Moses, in the later Pro- 
phets, and in the Gospels, the writings of St. Paul, and 
the Epistles of St. Peter and St. John. The eleventh of 
Hebrews is a divine commentary on the Old Testament 
histories, in which this aspect of them is brought into 
full relief; and the whole message of the Bible is 
summed up in the solemn contrast, " He that believeth 
on the Son of God hath everlasting life ; and he that 
believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of 
God abideth on him." 

6. The need of sacrifice and atonement is another 
truth, in which we may trace the all-pervading unity 
of Scripture. Abel's sacrifice was accepted, when he 
brought the firstlings of his flock ; and Cain's was 
rejected, who brought a bloodless offering, the fruits of 
the earth. When Noah had slain the victims in sacri- 
fice after the flood, " the Lord smelled a sweet savour," 
and a renewed covenant of mercy and promise was 
given. It was in the midst of such sacrifices that the 
covenant was again renewed to Abraham with special 
promises. After the sacrifice of Isaac, in a figure, and 
of the ram caught in the thicket in his stead, a still fuller 
blessing was given by a new covenant, and confirmed 
with the oath of God. The law of Moses was full of 
sacrificial ordinances, from the passover on the night of 
the Exodus to the latest ordinance of purification, in 
Numbers, by the spotless heifer that was to be slain, and 
whose ashes were to sprinkle the unclean. Isaiah trans- 
fers the types of the law to their antitype, the coming 
Messiah : " All we, like sheep, have gone astray : we 
have turned every one to his own way ; and the Lord 
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." " When thou 
shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his 
seed, he shall prolong his days. . . . By his know- 
ledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he 



414 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

shall bear their iniquities." The New Testament 
repeats the same truth in still clearer accents, and 
refers all the types in the legal sacrifices to their great 
Antitype : " The Son of man came, not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister ; and to give his life a ransom for 
many." " Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away 
the sin of the world." " Without shedding of blood 
there is no remission." " God hath made him to be sin 
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the 
righteousness of God in him." " These are they which 
have come out of great tribulation, and have washed 
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb." "Who his own self bare our sins in his own 
body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, might live 
to righteousness ; by whose stripes ye were healed." 

7. The need of regeneration and holiness of heart in 
order to salvation is another truth which runs through 
the whole Bible. The contrast is drawn broadly, 
throughout, between the righteous and unrighteous, the 
believer and the unbeliever, the obedient and the dis- 
obedient. In the Flood, and the deliverance of Noah ; 
in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the rescue 
of Lot, the intercession of Abraham, and the promise 
that the city should have been spared for the sake of 
ten righteous ; and in the repeated contrasts of the 
Psalms, the Proverbs, and all the Prophets, the same 
doctrine everywhere appears. " The Lord loveth the 
righteous, but the wicked, and him that loveth violence, 
his soul hateth." " The Lord preserveth all them that 
love him, but all the wicked will he destroy." " The 
Lord taketh pleasure in his people ; he will beautify 
the meek with salvation." The prayers of the Psalmist 
teach the same lesson : " Create in me a clean heart, 
God ; and renew a right spirit within me." The Old 
Testament closes with a strong assertion of this moral 






THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 415 

contrast, and the opposite issue to which it leads : 
" Then shall ye return, and discern between the 
righteous and the wicked, between hirn that serveth 
God, and him that serveth hini not." 

The same truth is revealed with equal clearness in the 
New Testament, and the great change ascribed more 
plainly to its secret cause, the work of the Holy Spirit 
on the hearts of men. " A good tree," our Lord tells 
his disciples, " cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can 
a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Do men gather 
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?" Again to Ni- 
codemus : " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." " Except a 
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
The apostles dwell much on the same truth : " They 
that are in the flesh cannot please God." "To be 
carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded 
is life and peace." " If any man be in Christ, he is a 
new creature ; old things are passed away : behold, all 
things are become new." " For if ye live after the 
flesh, ye shall die ; but if ye through the Spirit do 
mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." " Follow 
after holiness, without which no man shall see the 
Lord." " Faith without works is dead, being alone." 
" As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in 
all manner of conversation : because it is written, Be 
ye holy, for I am holy." " He that doeth righteous- 
ness is righteous, even as He is righteous ; he that com- 
mitteth sin is of the devil." " Here is the patience of 
the saints : here are they that keep the commandments 
of God, and the faith of Jesus." All these, and many 
similar passages, teach the same lesson. They separate 
all mankind, morally and spiritually, into two opposite 
classes, believers and unbelievers ; those who live after 
the flesh, and after the spirit ; those who serve God, 



4:16 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and those who serve him not ; and teach that a well- 
grounded hope of salvation belongs to the former class, 
and to them alone. Eepentance and conversion is the 
bridge by which the soul passes from one side to the 
other of this gulf of moral separation ; and the message 
of our Lord is solemn and weighty, and sums up the 
voice of all Scripture : " Except ye repent, ye shall all 
likewise perish." " Except ye be converted, and be- 
come as little children, ye shall not enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." 

II. This doctrinal unity of the Bible might easily be 
traced in many other particulars, and under every 
diversified topic of religious truth. But it may be well 
to confine our view to one aspect in which it has been 
controverted and denied, from the contrast between the 
Old and the New Testament. If it can be shewn that, 
even where the apparent divergence is widest, the real 
harmony is complete ; no further proof will be needed 
of that Divine Authorship which belongs to the whole, 
and which has provided for men, by prophets and apostles, 
a perfect and harmonious treasury of Divine truth. 

The contrast in question has been stated by a modern 
sceptic in these terms : — 

" Here are two forms of religion which differ widely, 
set forth and enforced by miracles ; the one ritual and 
formal, the other actual and spiritual; the one the 
religion of Fear, the other of Love ; one finite, and 
resting altogether on the special revelation made to 
Moses ; the other absolute, and based on the universal 
revelation of Grod, who enlightens all that come into the 
world. One offers only an earthly recompense, the 
other makes immortality a motive to a divine life. One 
compels men, the other invites them. One half the 
Bible refutes the other half; the Gospel annihilates the 
Law ; the Apostles take the place of the Prophets, and 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 417 

go higher up. If Christianity and Judaism be not the 
same thing, there must be hostility between the Old 
and the New Testament, for the Jewish form claims to 
be eternal. To an unprejudiced man this hostility is 
very obvious. It may indeed be said, Christianity came 
not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil 
them ; and the answer is plain, their fulfilment was 
their destruction." 

The self-confident and irreverent tone of this objec- 
tion, in which the lie is directly given to our blessed 
Lord's own declaration, does not speak well for the 
practical power of that " absolute religion " by which 
the writer strives to replace and supersede historical 
Christianity. 

And first, this objection, instead of being the result of 
intellectual progress, is merely a relapse into an error 
which appeared very early, and from which it was one 
of our Lord's first lessons to deliver his own disciples. 
The difference of tone between his own teaching and 
that of the law of Moses, or rather of the scribes and 
Pharisees who expounded it to the people, was soon 
observed ; and led many hearers to suspect that his pur- 
pose was to set aside the authority of these earlier 
messages of God. But our Lord asserts the falsehood of 
this notion in the strongest and plainest terms : " Think 
not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets : 
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I 
say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one 
tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be ful- 
filled." 

The objection affirms that the fulfilment of the Law 
and the Prophets, under the Gospel, is their destruction. 
Our Lord affirms the exact reverse, that the fulfilment of 
them which it was his object to secure was the contrast 
and antithesis of their destruction : "lam not come to 

2 E 



418 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

destroy, but to fulfil." It is no slight presumption in 
this reckless advocate of " absolute religion" to give 
the lie direct to the Son of God in one of his most solemn 
and deliberate statements. 

But while the alleged contradiction between the Law 
and the Gospel is thus disproved by the highest autho- 
rity, that of our Lord himself, so that no one can be his 
true disciple who affirms them to be hopelessly at vari- 
ance, a partial and real contrast between them is clearly 
recognised in the New Testament. In the opening of 
the fourth Gospel we find it distinctly announced. 
" For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth 
came by Jesus Christ." So again, after the Baptist's 
message, — " The law and the prophets were untilJohn : 
since then the kingdom of heaven is preached, and every 
one is pressed into it." The Epistles of St. Paul have 
this for their main subject. " The law made nothing 
perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by 
which we draw nigh to God." " Therefore by the 
deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified, for by the 
law is the knowledge of sin." " Before faith came, we 
were kept under the law, shut up to the faith that 
should be revealed." " For if they which are of the law 
be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of 
no effect. Because the law worketh wrath ; for where 
there is no law there is no transgression." " For if 
the ministration of death, written and engraven on 
stones, was glorious, how shall not the ministration of 
the Spirit be rather glorious ?" In these and many 
other passages a strong contrast is plainly allowed and 
affirmed between the earlier messages of the Law, with 
their holiness and severity, and the grace, tenderness, 
and freedom, of the Gospel of Christ. 

The contrast, then, between the Law and the Gospel 
is no modern discovery of unbelievers. So far as it is 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 419 

real, it is recognised fully and openly in the New Tes- 
tament, and forms the basis of some of its most earnest 
appeals to the hearts and consciences of Christian men. 
On the other hand, the falsehood which exaggerates 
this partial contrast into a total contradiction is detected 
by our Lord, when it first began to arise in the hearts of 
his own disciples, and receives his earnest and indignant 
reprobation. He who maintains it must first claim to 
be wiser than Christ himself, and thereby forfeits at once 
the name and character of a Christian. 

But let us examine the statement more closely. And 
first, is the religion of Moses and of the Old Testament 
ritual and formal only ? Let Moses himself answer, in 
his earnest appeal before his death : " And now, Israel, 
what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear 
the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love 
him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
and with all thy soul. . . . Love ye therefore the 
stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 
Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou 
serve, and to him thou shalt cleave, and swear by his 
name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God." And 
our Lord himself, who alone, of all mankind, ever ful- 
filled the law of Moses, assures us that its weightiest 
matters were not the tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, 
but lessons of a far higher kind, even " judgment, mercy, 
and faith." 

Again, is the teaching of the Law a religion of fear 
alone ? Is it finite, making no appeal to the unchange- 
able moral attributes of the Most High ? Every religion 
must take its impress from the character of the object of 
worship. Cruel gods must create a fierce and cruel 
religion, and licentious divinities one of impurity and 
sensual lust. 

Now one part of the Law is plainly designed to reveal 

2 e 2 



420 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

the trne character of the Grod of Israel, in contrast to the 
superficial and hasty impressions which might be formed 
from a less thoughtful observation. When Moses 
offered the prayer in a time of distress and fear, " I 
beseech thee, shew me thy glory," the answer was 
given — " I will cause all my goodness to pass before 
thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before 
thee." After special preparation, and with peculiar 
solemnity, the desired revelation was given. " And the 
Lord passed by and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord 
Grod, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant 
in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, 
forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that 
will by no means clear the guilty ; visiting the iniquity 
of the fathers upon the children, and upon children's 
children, unto the third and fourth generation." 

What was the effect of this message, this crowning 
revelation of the " religion of fear" upon him who 
received it ? " And Moses made haste, and bowed his 
head toward the earth, and worshipped, and said, If 
now I have found grace in thy sight, Lord, let my 
Lord, I beseech thee, go among us, for it is a stiff- 
necked people ; and pardon our iniquity and sin, and 
take us for thine inheritance." Nor was this a transient 
impression on the mind of Moses alone. The Psalmist, 
four hundred years later, learned from the same passage 
a religion of hope and love ; " He made known his ways 
unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. The 
Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plen- 
teous in mercy. . . He will not always chide, neither 
will he keep his anger for ever. For as the heaven is 1 
high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them 
that fear him." 

Does the Law, again, offer only an earthly recom- 
pense ? Its fundamental promise is in the words to 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 421 

Abraham, " I will bless thee, and make thy name great, 
and thou shalt be a blessing." " Fear not, Abraham, 
I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." 
" I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." 
Since God himself is " the everlasting God," these 
promises clearly partake of the same character. The 
patriarchs desired " a better and a heavenly country." 
God was not " ashamed to be called their God, for he 
had prepared for them a city." In the hope of a better 
portion, they " confessed themselves strangers and 
pilgrims on the earth." The dying Jacob exclaimed, 
" I have waited for thy salvation, Lord." Moses 
" had respect unto the recompense of reward," and there- 
fore made mention of a book of life, in which his name 
was written. The Divine law enjoined the Israelites : 
" The land shall not be sold for ever ; for the land is 
mine, and ye are . strangers and sojourners with me." 
The commandment set before them " life and good," 
and promised, on their obedience, that the everlasting 
God would be " their life, and the length of their days." 
The eternal God was to be their refuge, and under- 
neath them were to be his " everlasting arms." They 
were to dwell in safety, as a people saved by the Lord ; 
and their days to be multiplied as the days of heaven. 
To the Levites the further promise was given, when 
excluded from a distinct territory, that " the Lord God 
of Israel was their inheritance." In all these promises 
there was a direct reference to God himself, as their 
God by especial covenant ; and to those who read them 
with faith they would be a sure pledge, not merely of 
temporal, but of eternal blessings. 

Again, does the Law merely compel by force, and not 
invite by the power of moral suasion ? No statement 
could be more opposed to the truth. The whole Book 
of Deuteronomy is one continued, earnest appeal to the 



422 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

conscience, the feelings, and the heart of the people of 
Israel. It is perhaps the longest, the most sustained 
moral invitation to be found in the compass of the word 
of God. The voice also of the prophets is a perpetual 
expostulation, a series of earnest appeals to the con- 
science and heart of later generations. 

Has the Gospel, on the other hand, no solemn mes- 
sages, no appeals to fear, to temper the grace and j 
tenderness of its invitations ? Far from it, the j 
warnings it contains are more severe than those of the 
law itself, borrow from them their sharpest accents of 
rebuke, and infuse into them a tone of still deeper 
meaning. " I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear : 
fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast 
into hell : yea, I say unto you, Fear him." " Ye ser- 
pents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the 
damnation of hell ?" "If the word spoken by angels 
was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience 
received a just recompense of reward, how shall we 
escape, if we neglect so great salvation ?" " Of how I 
much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, 
who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and 
counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was I 
sanctified, an unholy thing, and done despite to the 
Spirit of grace ?" " It is a fearful thing to fall into the 
hands of the living God." "For even our God is a 
consuming fire." In the face of these and similar 
passages, it is indeed strange how the most superficial 
could venture to set up the imaginary contrast, that the 
Gospel is a religion of love only, without fear, and the 
Law one of fear only, without love. In each message 
both of the Divine attributes are distinctly revealed, 
though not in the same proportion. The righteousness 
and holy severity of the law is tempered by rich reve- 
lations of Divine grace ; while the fuller and clearer 



r THE DOCTEINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 423 

grace of the Gospel is guarded by warnings still more 
solemn than the penal sanctions of the elder covenant ; 
and a still sorer punishment is denounced upon those 
who despise and disobey. 

Again, the promises of the Gospel, while they relate 
mainly to the future, include the present also. It 
retains the lower promises of the law, and only tempers 
them, by the knowledge of the cross, with a new ele- 
ment of patience and mingled sorrow. Our Lord lays 
down this law of hope clearly to his followers : " There 
is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, 
or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for 
my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hun- 
dredfold now in this time, with persecutions ; and in 
the world to come, eternal life." The Apostle repeats 
and confirms his Master's promise, and declares that 

godliness is profitable for all things, and hath the 
promise of the life that now is, as well as that which is 
to come." The two dispensations, even where the seem- 
ing contrast is the greatest, interlace and overlap, like 
the folds of the curtains of the tabernacle, with a mar- 
vellous unity ; and reveal, amidst their partial contrast, 
the one mind of the Divine Spirit, penetrating, mould- 
ing, pervading, and harmonizing the whole. 

But this deep unity between the Law and the Gospel 
may be seen more clearly, when we look below the sur- 
face, and refer them to those Divine attributes which 
they are especially designed to reveal. 

There are three successive forms of Divine goodness, 
ascending by a climax to its fullest and highest exhibi- 
tion^ The first is simple bounty, or love to creatures, 
as creatures, irrespective of every moral difference. This 
is the basis of natural religion in its simplest and most 
elementary form. It is implied and assumed in the Bible, 
and blends with its messages ; but is like the court 



424 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

of the Gentiles, when compared with the higher lessons 
of written revelation. The second is righteousness and 
holiness, or the love of moral good, and the hatred of 
moral evil. This is the fundamental truth of the legal 
covenant.. It reveals God in his holiness, in that 
hatred of sin, as well as delight in goodness, which 
finds its reflection in the double precept, " Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy." It is this 
character of the Old Testament, which makes it wear so 
forbidding and repulsive an aspect to all hearts that 
are still under the power of sin, and have attained 
no real sympathy with the Divine holiness. It is an 
aspect of perfect goodness, higher than simple, indis- 
criminate bounty, but less excellent than the grace of 
the Gospel. This is the third and highest form of 
Divine goodness — kindness to the unthankful and the 
unworthy ; a love which does not flatter or indulge 
them in their sin, but uses all patience and wisdom to 
raise them from the depth of moral evil into the image 
of God, the recovered possession of purity, uprightness, 
and love. 

There is nothing, then, arbitrary or capricious in this 
mutual relation of the Law of Nature, or the earlier stage 
of unwritten revelation, the Law of Moses, and the 
Gospel of Christ. They are three steps in the same series, 
an outer court, a holy place, and a most holy ; and are 
all required in a complete and harmonious revelation of 
the Divine goodness to sinful men. The partial con- 
trast between the Law and the Gospel is just as essential 
to the wisdom of the mesage, as their secret har- 
mony. It is only the severity of holiness which can 
prepare us for a just and full apprehension of Divine 
grace. Remove these preparatory teachings, and grace 
ceases to be grace. It soon, degenerates into mere indif- 
ference to moral good and evil, the darkest form of a 



THE DOCTRINAL UNITY OF THE BIBLE. 425 

perverse fatalism, instead of the hest and noblest form 
of goodness, tender compassion to the guilty, and re- 
deeming love. 

Contrast, however, is not contradiction. It is one 
element in the most complete and perfect unity. The 
hues of light in the rainbow are contrasted with each 
other, and still they are only pure light analysed and 
separated into its varying elements. And so it is with 
the truths of the Law and the Gospel. In one we have 
types, in the other antitypes. In one, holy severity is 
more apparent ; in the other, tender compassion and grace. 
But the contrasted truths interpenetrate the whole. The 
Gospel, with its richest grace, is virtually contained in 
the Law ; and holiness, in its deepest and most solemn 
tones of warning, blends everywhere with the rich har- 
monies of the Gospel promises. The God revealed in 
the Law is One who " careth for the strangers, and re- 
lie veth the fatherless and the widow ;" who " giveth 
good to all flesh, because his mercy endureth for ever." 
He is One who promises that he will hear the cry of the 
poor in his distress, " for I am gracious ;" and commands 
his people : " Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye 
know the heart of a stranger, for ye were strangers in 
the land of Egypt." He is One who forbids every 
grudge, and enjoins a perfect love ; who cares for the 
safety of the poor, the deaf, the blind ; and teaches 
lessons of kindness even to the child in his play, from 
the lost ox or ass, and the gleanings of the harvest 
field. On the other hand, the Gospel fences round its 
most gracious promises with terrors borrowed from the 
language of the law, and the prospect of coming judg- 
ment. Its most gracious invitations follow close upon 
a warning to unbelievers : " It shall be more tolerable 
for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than 
for you ;" and its noblest descriptions of the future 



426 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

blessedness are linked with the solemn declaration, " For 
without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, 
and idolaters, and murderers, and whosoever loveth and 
maketh a lie." Righteousness in the Law prepares the 
way for grace ; and grace, in the Gospel, reigns "through 
righteousness unto eternal life." They are attributes 
of perfect goodness, contrasted, but still harmonious; 
revealed successively, that their true force and meaning 
may be more clearly seen by dull and earthly minds, 
and still blending ever with each other in their partial 
separation. Mercy is veiled, yet everywhere present in 
the Law, but is revealed in the Gospel ; and the grace 
of the Gospel, centering in the cross of Christ and his 
Divine atonement, is the highest, noblest, and most 
wonderful exhibition of the righteousness of God. Thus 
" mercy and truth meet together, and righteousness 
and peace embrace each other." " Truth springs out 
of the earth " in the person of the incarnate Redeemer, 
and " righteousness looks down from heaven," while 
the Spirit, the reward of his suffering and agony, is 
poured out upon a sinful world. 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 427 



CHAPTER XIX. 

REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 

The Bible, if composed of true revelations from God to 
man, reaching through a space of fifteen hundred years, 
may be expected to throw some light on the scheme of 
Divine "providence. Its first object may be to promote 
personal religion, to reclaim prodigals from their sin, to 
provide a firm ground of hope for sincere penitents, and 
instruct them in their present duty to God and their 
fellow-men. But since its professed aim is to renew the 
souls of men in the image of God, it must, in its higher 
lessons, give its discij^les some real ^insight into the 
plans and purposes of the Most High. For its object is 
not only to convert rebels and slaves into servants, but 
to exalt servants themselves into the friends and sons of 
God. 

The Scriptures satisfy this reasonable expectation. 
A unity of living hope runs through the whole course 
of their messages. The histories, the doctrines, and the 
prophecies, all harmonize with each other ; and reveal, 
under varied aspects, one consistent scheme of Divine 
wisdom, which moves on continually towards the 
redemption of a sinful world. 

All scepticism, however unconsciously, has its root in 
the heart. Man must feel and own that he is a sinner, 
before he can feel his need of a Redeemer. He must 
own his guilt, before he can sue for pardon, or welcome 



428 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

the Divine atonement by which pardon is secured. He 
must learn his weakness in the inward conflict with 
selfishness and sin, before he will rest on a higher 
strength than his own, or seek the promised help of the 
Spirit of God. So long as he thinks that he needs 
education alone, without conversion or renewal of heart, 
the Gospel of Christ will remain to him a sealed mystery. 
If he attempts, in this state of mind, to interpret the 
scheme of Providence, he will be almost sure to lose 
himself in a labyrinth of error. God's providence is 
not a course of education for a world of teachable, 
happy, sinless disciples of truth. It is a hospital for 
souls labouring under a sore disease, a scheme of 
redemption for the lost and guilty, procured through 
the dying agony of the Son of God. Whenever this 
idea of redemption is lost, then the key of knowledge is 
taken away, and Providence becomes a hopeless enigma. 
The facts of history, and the testimonies of Scripture, 
have then to be set aside, or garbled and falsified, in 
order to reconcile them with the demands of some false 
and deceptive theory, some philosophical counterfeit of 
Christianity, from which all its distinctive features have 
passed away. 

That view of Providence, which sees in it simply a 
scheme for the world's education, denies the fall of man, 
and, by consequence, his need of a Divine redemption. 
It diverges, then from the Bible at the outset, and this 
divergence increases, as we travel along the stream of 
time. The darker features of the world's history have 
to be explained away, in order to reconcile them with a 
sinless progress of humanity from infancy to perfect 
wisdom. The foulest abominations of heathenism, for 
thousands of years, have then to be softened down into 
the harmless and natural delusions of infancy, before 
human reason had ripened by the due exercise of its 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 429 

own powers. The later idolatries and sensual vices of 
Greece and Rome, and the self-righteousness of the 
Jewish Pharisees, to suit the same theory, must he 
taken for the generous and attractive impulses of 
opening youth ; and the apostasies of the middle ages, 
or the feverish worldliness and intellectual pride of later 
times, must be termed the growth of manly strength, 
or the calm and mature wisdom of ripened and ex- 
perienced age. Thus the testimony of the Bible has 
to be reversed and falsified in every point, both in its 
historical statements, and its prophetical warnings ; and 
the heady and high-minded are beguiled with the 
flattering notion that they are wiser than the wisest of 
former generations, from the happy accident of their 
being born in a later and more enlightened age of the 
world. 

The comparison of the times of the Law to childhood, 
and of the Gospel to a riper age, has a direct warrant in 
the Scriptures themselves. But it belongs to the true 
disciples of the Law and the Gospel alone. When ex- 
tended to the whole world, with its multitude of 
unbelievers, the comparison fails. Where there is no 
life, there can be no real growth. There must be 
repentance and conversion from sin to God, before the 
true education of the soul can begin. Unbelief may re- 
volve in cycles of error from age to age ; but only those 
who enter in at the strait gate can walk in the way of 
life, and thus advance nearer and nearer to that moral 
perfection, the recovered image of God, after which 
their souls continually aspire. 

The Bible, alike in its histories and prophecies, is 
flatly opposed to those theories of mankind's gradual 
and universal progress in moral and religious truth, 
which have been propounded by unbelieving philo- 
sophy, and which sometimes labour, however vainly, to 



430 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

support themselves by an appeal to its own statements. 
The pictures it sets before us are widely different — a 
series of rebellions and apostasies, resisted, and partially 
overcome, by mighty acts of Divine grace ; but contin- 
ually repeated in new forms, till they issue, in the last 
times, in a solemn and fearful controversy between light 
and darkness, and in judgment on abounding ungodli- 
ness, as well as in rich mercy and grace to those who 
know God and obey the Gospel of Christ. We are 
told, in the New Testament, that " in the last days 
perilous times shall come," and that " evil men and 
seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and 
being deceived." And, however the views of Christians 
may vary with regard to the future course of Providence, 
and the final victories of truth — one thing must be plain, 
to all who read the Scriptures with reverence, that they 
are nowhere ascribed to a natural law of human 
progress, but to gracious acts of the Holy Spirit, or 
direct judgments of Christ, which will overcome and 
reverse the downward tendency of the human heart, 
and bind a reluctant and rebellious race, by mercy and 
judgment, to the footstool of the Most High. 

But while the Bible is thus opposed to those spurious 
theories of progress, which are based on human pride 
and contradict the facts of history, it exhibits a progress 
of a different kind, in the ceaseless unfolding of a scheme 
of Divine mercy for the redemption and recovery of 
sinful man. God, in his own nature, is unsearchable : 
he can be known only as he is revealed. A revelation 
of moral attributes, since it must consist of the suc- 
cessive acts of God's moral government, must plainly 
be progressive. Salvation, or the recovery of the soul 
from the power of sin, is by faith alone. The object 
of faith is Divine truth. It is by the knowledge of the 
truth that the souls of men are actually redeemed and 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 431 

renewed. And since the providence of God unfolds 
itself, from age to age, in new acts of judgment and of 
mercy, the materials .of moral influence are thus increased 
and multiplied, which the Holy Spirit, the Lord and 
Giver of life, employs in his gracious work upon the 
hearts of men, both in their first conversion, and in 
their later advances in heavenly wisdom. There is thus 
.a double progress, which the Scriptures reveal to us. 
The first is that of the Divine counsel itself, or the 
acts of mercy and judgment, which constitute the moral 
government of the world, and the messages of revela- 
tion. This is unintermitted, ceaseless, and unfailing, 
It admits of no arrest, and no reverse. However dark 
the moral state of the world may be in special crises 
of Providence, the stars, even at midnight, move on in 
their everlasting courses, and prepare the way for a 
brighter sunrise to follow. The second kind of pro- 
gress is that of the actual fruits of redemption in each 
successive age. And this resembles the apparent move- 
ments of the planets. There is a general progress, 
subject to temporary retrocession and decline. Seasons 
of Divine forbearance, through man's perverseness, lead 
to spiritual decay. " Because sentence against an evil 
work is not executed speedily, the hearts of the sons of 
men is fully set in them to do evil." That evil is per- 
mitted to reach a certain height, and is then broken to 
pieces by new acts of judgment, followed by fresh and 
higher revelations of mercy. And thus, although by a 
chequered and seemingly irregular course, the work of 
grace moves on continually, and truth prevails, by a 
slow but sure advance, from age to age. Even when 
it seems to decay, and " the faithful are minished from 
the children of men "■ — the time of fear and sorrow is 
only the season of travail before a joyful birth. Each 
fresh exhibition of the stubbornness and inveteracy of 



432 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

evil illustrates more brightly, in the result, the victo- 
rious energy of redeeming love. 

Let us begin with the Book of Genesis. No sooner 
has man fallen from his original uprightness, and 
become the prey of death, than hope dawns upon him 
in the first promise. The Seed of the Woman, it is 
revealed, shall bruise the head of the serpent. The 
message, however dim at first, implied clearly a Deli- 
verer to come, by whom the miseries of the fall should 
be repaired, and the power of the deceiver be over- 
come. This same promise runs, like a golden thread, 
through all the later Scriptures. In the very first 
chapter of the New Testament, the miraculous birth of 
Messiah answers strictly to this his earliest title in the 
Old Testament. The words of our Lord himself 
announce the promised triumph as already begun. "I 
beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." " Now 
is the judgment of this world : now is the prince of this 
world cast out." The apostle renews the promise to 
the Christians of Rome, where Satan's seat was so long 
to be established : " The God of peace shall bruise Satan 
under your feet shortly." And its completion is one main 
subject of the last and crowning prophecy of the word 
of God, where the old serpent is revealed in vision, first 
in the height of his power and fiercest malice, and 
then in his downfall, and final judgment. 

The history of the world, before the flood, is one of 
Divine forbearance carried to its extreme limit, until 
one righteous family alone was found on the earth. 
A darker and more gloomy season can hardly be con- 
ceived, than that which the sacred historian sets before 
us. " The earth was corrupt and filled with violence," 
and " all flesh had corrupted their way upon earth." 
Then followed a most solemn judgment, and a signal 
deliverance. Amidst the desolation, a new covenant 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 433 

of mercy was sealed with the future race of mankind, 
which implied that no judgment, so total, should ever 
be repeated, and no season of such utter darkness settle 
down again upon our sinful world. 

When idolatry began to prevail once more, after the 
Flood, and threatened to renew the former calamities, 
a new course of redeeming mercy began. One people 
were set apart in the person of their forefather, by 
a series of miraculous visions, to be the special depo- 
sitories of the truth of Grod, until the promised Re- 
deemer should appear. The covenant with Abraham 
marks evidently a new era in God's providence. Special 
mercy and electing grace were to minister to the larger 
object of a world-wide redemption. " In thy seed shall 
all the nations of the earth be blessed." 

This further promise, like the earlier one in Paradise, 
is repeated through the whole course of Scripture to its 
close. It is the ground of the promise made to Moses 
at the bush : " I will bring you into the land, concern- 
ing which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, 
and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for a heritage : 

am the Lord." It occurs continually, as the warrant 
of faith and hope, in the Psalms and the Prophets : 

Thou wilt perform the mercy unto Abraham, and 
the truth unto Jacob, which thou hast sworn unto our 
fathers from the days of old." It meets our eyes in the 
very first verse of the New Testament : " The book of 
the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the 
son of Abraham." It is repeated again in the song of 
Zacharias. After the day of Pentecost, St. Peter appeals 
to it once more : " Ye are the children of the prophets, 
and of the covenant which Grod made with our fathers, 
saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the 
families of the earth be blessed. Unto you first, Grod, 
having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless 

2 F 



434 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

you, in turning away every one of you from his 
iniquities." 

Before the grace of God, however, could be clearly 
made known to men, there was needed a full revelation 
of his holiness. This was the great office of the Old 
Covenant. " By the law is the knowledge of sin ;" and 
the knowledge of sin can alone awaken the desire for 
mercy, or discover to men the true meaning of the grace 
of the Gospel. During the times of the Old Testament 
this revelation became fuller and fuller, with every new 
display of the sin and perverseness of the chosen people. 
Truth stood on the defensive amidst the gloomy reign 
of heathen idolatry, and the state of actual piety was 
often lamentably low, as in the days of Gibeah, or 
the reign of Ahab ; but the materials were preparing 
slowly and patiently, which the Spirit of God would 
employ, in all later ages,. to help forward the promised 
victories of truth and righteousness. Every generation 
yielded its fresh contribution to the growing temple of 
revealed truth, until the last of the prophets announced 
the approaching advent of Messiah, and the rising of 
the Sun of righteousness, with healing in his wings. 

The birth of our Lord, and still more his death and 
resurrection, marked a new and nobler era in the de- 
velopment of this scheme of Divine mercy. The whole 
range of earlier prophecy, from the sentence on the 
serpent in Paradise to the parting words of Malachi, 
began to be fulfilled. Three great wants of mankind 
were supplied, — a perfect Example, a Divine Atonement 
for sin, and a living Fountain-head of heavenly grace. 
In the new dispensation of the Spirit, after the great 
sacrifice of the cross was complete, grace was to be 
as conspicuous as righteousness had been before ; and 
the message of the law to one favoured race alone was 
replaced by a free proclamation of pardon, life, ancT 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 435 

immortality, through the atoning death and resurrection 
of Christ, to all the nations of the earth. 

The New Testament, however, in proclaiming the 
sure triumphs of the Gospel, and the final establishment 
of the kingdom of Grod in the age to come, nowhere 
announced a smooth and easy progress of truth to its 
full victory. On the contrary, it foretold, under the 
Grospel, conflicts, reverses, and apostasy from the faith, 
like those which formed the history of the Old Testa- 
ment. The earlier record of the sins of Israel was to 
supply descriptions for new forms of evil within the 
church of Christ. Strong and repeated cautions are 
given against the superstitions of the latter times, and 
against the selfishness and open unbelief that would 
prevail in the last days. The sacred history teaches 
how the Law had been perverted into Pharisaic self- 
righteousness, when the grace of the Grospel was re- 
vealed. The prophecies of the New Testament forewarn 
the churches that the grace of the Grospel, in its turn, 
would be extensively abused, and turned into a plea for 
sensuality and unbelief, before that fuller display of 
righteous judgment, which would break in pieces all the 
power of evil, and introduce a lasting reign of righteous- 
ness and peace. 

The Bible reveals, then, a continual progress, in the 
ceaseless unfolding of the Divine attributes through 
successive ages, from the Patriarchs to the Law, from 
the Law to the Prophets, from these to the times of 
the Grospel, and from these again to a glorious triumph 
and reign of righteousness still to come. But while 
this objective progress is without intermission, it is not 
so with the actual prevalence of truth and holiness 
amongst mankind. This has its seasons of marked 
revival and progress, and its intervals of apostasy and 
decay. The abuse of earlier messages or degrees of 

2 f 2 



436 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

light, when it has reached its climax, brings down the 
judgments of God, and these judgments are followed 
by new displays of mercy. All the analogies of Scrip- 
ture, and its direct prophecies, confirm the hope that 
the next thousand years of the world's history will 
surpass the times of the Gospel, as far as these have 
surpassed the times of the Law and the early Patriarchs. 
But this hope is quite consistent with warnings of 
wide-spread apostasy from the faith, through intellec- 
tual pride, and a strong current of unbelieving world- 
liness in the last days. All theories of progress, which 
lead men to rely on their natural powers in dealing with 
the truth of God, and to look down on the Bible as a 
secondary and uncertain guide, in comparison with their 
own conscience and reason, instead of being the heralds 
of real advance, are ominous precursors of spiritual 
delusion and open apostasy from the faith. Men, 
without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are just as 
liable to deadly and fatal error in our thnes as in any 
previous age. The louder their boasts of intellectual 
advancement and superior intelligence, the more plainly 
the snares of that great deceiver, who is " king over all 
the children of pride," are weaving around their path. 
It is only by returning to sit, with the docility of little 
children, at the feet of Christ, that they can avoid the 
danger which the prophet has described in such vivid 
terms : " Give glory to the Lord your God, before he 
cause darkness, and your feet stumble on the dark 
mountains ; and while ye look for light he turn it into 
the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness." 

The Bible is a history of redemption, but of a redemp- 
tion still incomplete, and of which the full and open 
triumph is reserved for days to come. Viewed in the 
light of this great truth, a singular unity of prophetic 
hope runs through the whole, and becomes doubly 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 437 

striking, when we compare its earliest and latest mes- 
sages. No books of the Bible are more contrasted in 
their general character than Genesis and Revelation. 
The interval of time which separates them is more than 
fifteen hundred years. The first is a simple, unadorned 
history ; the second, a series of highly poetical visions. 
The first is the earliest variety of Hebrew prose ; the 
second, in a language then unborn, embodies the main 
features of Hebrew poetry. The Book of Genesis 
records common events upon earth ; the Apocalypse, to 
a great extent, is the description of heavenly wonders. 
One is a preface to the Law, the other a supplement to 
the Gospel. One was written by the adopted son of 
Pharaoh's daughter, learned in all the wisdom of 
Egypt; the other, by an unlearned fisherman of de- 
spised Galilee. The first abounds with innumerable 
details, names of persons, places, and domestic annals 
of the most minute and various kind ; while the other 
scarcely stoops to set its foot upon earth, but dwells 
apart as on a mount of transfiguration. When the 
former was composed, Israel had scarcely begun to be a 
nation ; but when the exile received his visions in 
Patmos, their national history was closed for ages, and 
they were already outcasts and wanderers through the 
earth. All things on earth were changed in this long 
interval — Egypt, Canaan, and Babylon ; only God and 
his redeeming grace remained unchangeable. Yet the 
latest book corresponds to the earliest, as the loops and 
curtains of the tabernacle, or the various parts of the 
temple, with multiplied harmonies, partly of the most 
obvious, but in part of the most delicate and unobtrusive 
kind. Creation has its counterpart in the promise, 
" Behold, I make all things new." The uncreated light 
which fills the heavenly city ; the successive revelation 
of the beast from the sea, the beast from the earth, and 



438 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

one like to the Son of man ; the sabbatic rest of a thou- 
sand years ; the river from the throne, watering the 
heavenly Paradise ; the great river Euphrates, the gold 
and precious stones of the New Jerusalem, the tree of 
life in the Paradise of God ; the marriage of the Lamb, 
the Second Adam, and the clothing in which the Bride 
is arrayed ; the Old Serpent, the deceiver of the nations, 
the Woman and her mystic Seed, and sore travail ; the 
removal of the curse, and the angel guards at the open 
gates of the heavenly Paradise ; the cry of the martyrs 
from beneath the altar of burnt offering, and the rainbow 
around the throne ; — are all so many distinct allusions, 
in this closing prophecy, to the earliest chapters of the 
sacred history. The Old Testament here conspires 
with the New, and the history of the world's first 
infancy is seen to be stored with lessons of Divine 
wisdom, which were to be fully unveiled, after six . or 
seven thousand years, in the final close of the mystery 
of God. 

The Bible, then, amidst the large variety of its con- 
tents, which embrace an interval of fifteen centuries in 
their composition, and seven thousand years in the times 
to which they refer — in its histories, psalms, proverbs, 
prophecies, and epistles, earthly facts and heavenly re- 
velations — exhibits, from first to last, the clear signs of 
a Divine unity which pervades and animates the whole 
Its distinct parts are not of separate interpretation. Be- 
hind the human authors stood the Divine Spirit, con- 
trolling, guiding, and suggesting every part of their 
different messages. Their words " came not at any 
time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake, 
borne along by the Holy Ghost." As the Jordan flows 
underground in part of its course, so this Divine unity 
may be obscured from hasty observers by the multitude 
of intervening works of which the whole message is 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 439 

composed, by the variety of historical details, the diver- 
sity of manner and style, of age and local circumstance, 
in the sixty-six books which constitute the Bible. But 
its sunrise and sunset are equally glorious, and reveal 
clearly the hidden harmony of the whole revelation. 
It traces the course of Providence from that creation, in 
which our earth was prepared for the habitation of men, 
to the complete accomplishment of that new creation, in 
which it will be the habitation of righteousness for ever. 
It begins with the first bridal of Adam and Eve, the 
parents of all mankind, and closes with the heavenly 
bridal of the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, and 
the Church of the Firstborn, in whom the great mystery 
of that ordinance is fulfilled. It begins with a vision 
of the earthly Paradise forfeited by sin, and the taste 
of the forbidden tree of knowledge. It closes with the 
revelation of a better and heavenly Paradise, where no 
tree of knowledge is seen, but the tree of life alone, and 
even its leaves are for the healing of the nations. It 
begins with the success of the Old Serpent in deceiving 
Adam and Eve 5 and ends with the vision of his over- 
throw by the Seed of the Woman, when he can deceive 
the nations no more, but sinks under the righteous 
judgment of God. It begins with man's exclusion from 
Paradise by the watching cherubim and the flaming 
sword ; and ends with the revelation of the heavenly 
Jerusalem, whose gates are open continually, while an 
angel at every gate invites the nations of the saved to 
bring their honour and glory into the city of God. 

The more closely, then, we examine the Bible, the 
more plainly it will appear to be indeed " the true 
sayings of God," " the word of God which liveth and 
abideth for ever." In its width, its freedom, and its 
grandeur, it reflects the largeness of God's universal 
Providence. Like that Providence, it has its seeming 



440 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

discrepancies, and its real perplexities, much to exercise 
faith, as well as much by which it is nourished, parts 
which may appear trivial and superfluous, and depths 
which repel the frivolous with a sense of impenetrable 
gloom. Even those who sincerely embrace the Gospel 
may rest satisfied with a dim and imperfect measure 
of knowledge, and thus have their faith in it exposed to 
sore trial, whenever new temptations assail the church of 
Christ. But in proportion as we search it with humble 
diligence and earnest prayer, fresh harmonies of Divine 
truth, new wonders of Divine grace and love, will dis- 
close themselves to our view. One difficulty after 
another will slowly melt away, and resolve itself into a 
halo of heavenly beauty. Sixty generations of the 
church have studied it unceasingly ; but this incor- 
ruptible manna neither wastes nor corrupts, and they 
nave never exhausted its stores of Divine wisdom. Sixty 
generations of unbelievers have assailed it on every 
side with winds of false doctrine, but it has only rooted 
itself the more firmly in the hearts of Christians, and in 
the history of the world. And still, after all these ages, 
there are deep mines of truth in it which have never 
been explored, harvests of spiritual food still to be reaped 
by coming generations, and healing medicines for count- 
less evils that are still concealed in the depths of future 
time. The words of the prophet to Ariel of old will 
assuredly be fulfilled, soon or late, in all who assail 
this enduring word of God. " And the multitude of 
the nations that fight against her and her munition 
shall be even as the dream of a night vision. It shall 
be as when a hungry man dreameth, and behold he 
eateth, but he waketh, and his soul is empty ; or a 
thirsty man dreameth, and behold he drinketh, but he 
waketh, and is faint, and his soul hath appetite : so 
shall all the multitude of the nations be that fight 



REDEMPTION A PROGRESSIVE SCHEME. 441 

against Zion." But those who draw near with reve- 
rence, and while they meditate, loose their shoes from 
their feet on this holy ground, will equally find the pro- 
mise of the Psalmist fulfilled in their own experience : 
" They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness 
of thy house, and thou wilt make them drink of the 
river of thy pleasures : for with thee is the fountain of 
life, and in thy light we shall see light." The meteors 
of false philosophy blaze for a moment, and disappear ; 
but the written word of God is an effluence from the 
Uncreated Light, and must endure for ever. 



( 443 ) 



NOTES 



Note A. The Evidential School of Theology. 

The Evidential School of Theology, represented by Lardne'r 
and Paley, and continued by Archbishop Whateley, has been \ 
the object, latterly, of strong disparagement from various 
quarters. Those who reject Christianity, and those who receive 
it purely on the warrant of their own intuitions and a verifying 
faculty within, conspire in the same verdict of condemnation. 
The Sixth Essay is a notable example of the contemptuous 
style of criticism. They are accused of an Old Bailey theology, 
in which the Apostles are tried, once a week, for the capital 
crime of forgery. Then minds, being occupied with external 
evidences, know nothing of the spiritual intuition, of which they 
renounce the difficulties and the consolations. They "had 
neither the taste nor the knowledge " for an historical investiga- 
tion of the Origines of Christianity. Paley "dedicated his 
powers to a factitious thesis." His demonstration, "however 
perfect, is in unreal matter." The case, as stated by them, " is 
wholly conventional," and the breadth of their assumptions 
" is out of all proportion to the narrow dimensions of the point 
they succeed in proving." " We owe to their influence, at least 
in part, the unwholesome state of theological feeling in our 
time, which, while it professes that its religious belief rests on 
historical evidence, refuses to allow that evidence to be 
examined in open court. They went on manufacturing 
evidence as an ingenious exercise, when attacks by the press \ . 
were nearly at an end, and the Deists had ceased to be." They ! ' 
had neither the critical tools to work with, nor the historical 
materials to work upon, and therefore, " it is no wonder if they 
failed in their art." They " no longer dared to scrutinize the 
contents of revelation." (E. and E. pp. 260-262.) 



444 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

This is certainly a very " free handling " of the writers so 
contemptuously described. Whether it is " a becoming spirit " 
which holds up all the adversaries of Deism in the last century 
to public derision, is not so plain. A friendly and lenient 
critic in the Replies, while he owns the mischievous effect the 
Essay may probably have on young and clever students, pleads 
in its favour that " it was not written with any theological 
object, good or bad, but mainly with a literary one ; and that it 
is a libel to accuse it of containing wanton or formal unbelief." 
But a paper which trifles with a vital subject through seventy 
pages, with no practical purpose, and holds up to scorn those 
who defended the truth of God, in perilous times, with no mean 
ability, reminds us strongly of the sportive madman in Proverbs, 
who amused himself with " casting firebrands, arrows, and death." 
For the sake of superficial readers of the Essays, who may be led, 
by such criticisms, to despise, first of all, the writers themselves, 
and then the cause which they maintained ; it may be well to 
spend a few pages in a strict analysis of these censures, and an 
explanation of the source from which they arise. 

1. 1. First, these works on the evidences of Christianity are 
styled contemptuously, " an Old Bailey theology, in which the 
Apostles are tried once a week for the capital crime of forgery." 
No doubt it is painful and repulsive to the heart of every sincere 
Christian, that unbelievers should dare to bring a charge of 
wilful fraud against our Lord and his Apostles. But that 
English clergymen should be found, who lay the whole blame 
of this indignity, not on the blasphemers by whom it is 
made, but on the Claris tian writers by whom it is repelled, is 
indeed a moral prodigy. It is too much like traitors in a camp, 
who accuse the sentinels of having fired their guns in mere 
wantonness, when a night attack is being made, and the air is 
filled with the war-cries of a boastful enemy. 

2. But their labours, we are told, were unseasonable, and not 
occasioned by any demands of controversy. " The Deists had 
ceased to be." 

Now what are the real facts ? Lardner and Paley are the 
two names, in the last century, which are singled out for this 
adverse criticism. The first volume of the " Credibility " was 
published in 1727, in the middle or 'earlier half of the Deistical 
controversy, while the works of Woolston and others were 



NOTES. 445 

issuing from the press. The last part of the Supplement was in 
1767, forty years later. As Dr. M'Caul and Dr. Fitzgerald 
have both remarked, the triumph of the Christian advocates, in 
the field of learning, was complete. At the. very time when 
InQdelity was ripening in France and on the Continent, it was 
reduced in England to comparative silence. By a strange 
anachronism, the completeness with which they did their work 
is now turned into a proof that their labours were an idle 
amusement. The champions of Christianity toiled in vain, 
because, near the close of their efforts " the attacks through the 
press were nearly at an end : the Deists had ceased to be." 

Again, the Horse Paulinse was published in 1790, and the 
Evidences in 1794. Those five years were the grand saturnalia 
of triumphant infidelity. The unbelieving conspiracy of the 
French Encyclopedists and German Illuminees was crowned 
with a momentary success. The world was appalled with a 
spectacle never seen before since the beginning of time, a nation 
of open Atheists. Unbelief was never so boastful, so sanguine 
of speedy and universal triumph. In England learned treatises 
had ceased to appear, because the disease, repelled in one 
quarter by the Christian apologists, had reappeared in another, 
and threatened to carry away the unlearned commonalty as 
with a flood from the serpent's mouth. The writings of Paine, 
unlearned, vulgar, and scurrilous, were in the height of their 
popularity. There could never be a time when a brief, lucid, 
popular exhibition of the historical proof of the Christian revela- 
tion could be more seasonable. And this is precisely the 
characteristic feature of Paley's two works. They make no 
claim, like those of Lardner, to profound and original historical 
research. Their aim is to simplify the argument, to strip it of 
needless accessaries, and present it in its briefest and clearest 
form. They merely open the way to the temple of Divine 
truth, and clear away the stumbling blocks which scepticism 
had placed in the path, and do not profess to introduce us to the 
inner shrine. This was their special object. The writer kept 
the nature of his work clearly in view, and has done it well. 
There can hardly be a stronger contrast than between the Sixth 
Essay, a jungle of criticisms, which teach nothing, and lead 
to nothing, where the keenest eye can discover no practical 
aim, unless to increase the embarrassment of unsettled minds, 



446 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN" THOUGHT. 

and the Horse Paulines, that masterpiece of clear, practical, 
keen-sighted, historical argument. A hundred essays could 
hardly do so much to unsettle and disturb the faith of 
Christians, as this one short work has done to deepen the con- 
viction, in candid and thoughtful minds, of the historical reality 
and unassailable truth of the gospel history. 

3. But these writers, it is said, " had neither the critical tools 
to work with, nor the historical materials to work upon, and 
therefore failed in their art." By critical tools may perhaps be 
meant the minuter delicacies of Greek syntax, or the study of 
Sanscrit and comparative philology, or possibly the maxims of 
the Hegelian philosophy. But all these were quite useless for 
the special and limited object which Lardner and Paley had in 
view. The case may differ a little, where the subject of con- 
troversy was the Old Testament. But if the learning of the 
Christian apologists, as Bp. and S. Chandler, Leland, and others, 
was imperfect in itself, they were at least superior to their 
adversaries, and by the confession of their censor, they remained 
masters of the field. Drs. M'Caul and Fitzgerald, both well 
qualified judges, agree in the same emphatic statement. The 
latter, in his able paper just published, writes as follows : — 

" Their proper work was to drive the infidel writers of their 
own age out of the field, and never was task more completely 
accomplished. No literature, of any recent date, has perished 
more completely than the infidel literature of the early and 
middle parts of last century. Ipsse periere ruinee. Their very 
names indeed would have passed wholly from remembrance, if 
some of them had not been answered in works which posterity 
will not easily let die. They survive, like the heroes of the 
Newgate Calendar, in the annals of that public justice which 
chastised their faults," (Aids, p. 44). Whether, then, with or 
without " critical tools," their work was at least effectually done. 

But they had not "the historical materials to work upon." 
We might suppose, from such a remark, that nearly all the 
remains of the three or four first centuries had come to light for 
the first time in the present century. Mr. Westcott, one of 
our ablest students, speaks of Lardner's great work in terms 
which form a curious contrast to this flippant censure. "I 
should be ungrateful," he says, "not to bear witness to the 
accuracy and fulness of Lardner's Credibility. For however 



NOTES. 447 

imperfect it may be in the view it gives of the earliest period 
of Christian literature, it is, unless I am mistaken, more complete 
and trustworthy than any work which has since been written 
on the same subject." (Hist. Can. p. 9.) Both Lardner and 
Paley had to do almost exclusively with the New Testament ; 
and with the exception of Hippolytus, and the Syriac Ignatius, 
and a few trivial accessions besides, the historical materials in 
their days are almost precisely the same as in our own. It is 
true that Germany, since Lardner began to write, has bred some 
hundred mushrooms of learned conjectures and hypotheses, but 
the facts of early history emerge at the close of this deluge of 
fictions, the same as before. 

4. But the writers of this school, it is a further charge, appeal 
to historical evidence, and refuse to allow it to be tried in open 
court. The only proof of this curious accusation is drawn from 
the fact, that Dr. H. Marsh's hypothesis on the Three Gospels, 
"died away without exciting imitators." A comment follows, 
which Gibbon might envy as a skilful sidethrust at the sincerity 
of modern believers. The investigation " was excluded, not 
from a conviction of its barrenness, but from a fear that it might 
be found too fertile in results." 

The simple facts are these. The scissors and paste hypothesis, 
which makes the Evangelists form the three gospels by shreds 
and patches, pieced together from three, four, five, six, or even 
nine, earlier documents, never took root in England, because it 
was destitute of, and opposed to, all external evidence, and 
therefore wholly alien from the common sense of the English 
mind. It flourished for a time in Germany, its natural home, 
under Eichhorn, Corrodi, Schmidst, Feilrnoser, Gratz, and 
several others, assuming a fresh form with every writer; but 
has now died out, almost entirely, even on its native soil. The 
dislike, then, of such hypotheses in our country, implies "a 
wholesome state of theological feeling." It results from no fear 
of evidences being examined, but rather from a settled aversion 
to wasting time on learned figments, highly improbable in their 
own nature, and for which no grain of external evidence can be 
found. 

II. 1. The main charge remains to be examined. The thesis 
of these writers is factitious ; the demonstration is " in unreal 
matter ;" and the breadth of the assumptions out of all propor- 



448 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

tion to the narrowness of what they succeed in proving. The 
case, as stated by them, is purely conventional. Let us examine 
these oracular decisions. 

The thesis, styled factitious, is in these words : " There is 
satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original 
witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, 
dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of 
the accounts they delivered, and solely in consequence of their 
belief of those accounts ; and that they submitted, from the 
same motives, to new rules of conduct." 

A thesis wholly factitious must be one which assumes unreal 
facts, and argues on the supposition of their truth. Which of 
the two facts in Paley's thesis does the Essayist require us to 
disbelieve ? That the Apostles and first Christians really under- 
went labours, dangers, and sufferings ? Or that their sufferings 
were caused by their belief in the miracles of the Gospel and 
the Divine authority of Christ? Either assertion is equally 
preposterous. A demonstration can hardly be "in unreal 
matter" when its materials are among the most certain and 
notorious facts in the history of mankind. 

2. " The breadth of the assumptions is out of all proportion 
to the narrowness of the point which is proved." In a certain 
sense this is true. The assumptions are broad, for they consist 
of no minute and microscopic details, but of the main and con- 
spicuous outlines of early church history. And the conclusion 
is also narrow, since it resembles the strait gate ; and those who 
reject the authority of the Bible find no means of entering in, 
but remain without, complaining of its narrowness. But in the 
sense which the objection implies, the very reverse is true. The 
assumption, logically, is very narrow. It involves no question- 
able details of fact or doctrine, but plain facts alone, certified by 
abundant evidence. And the conclusion drawn from it is very 
wide in its practical and doctrinal issues, and fertile in results 
above measure. It involves the whole question, whether the 
true and living God has revealed his will to mankind. It 
reunites the fallen creature with the thrice Holy Creator, the 
sinner with the Saviour, life with immortality, and earth with 
heaven. 

3. "The case, as the apologists stated it, is wholly conven- 
tional." Such terms of disparagement, from their vagueness, 



NOTES. 449 

often makes a deeper impression. They admit of a true 
explanation, but when read in their context, they suggest 
inevitably a meaning wholly untrue. The ease is conventional 
in this sense, that it exhibits the logical elements of the 
question, stripped of all accessaries, in their bare and naked 
outline. Thus the human skeleton is conventional, when 
studied by the anatomist, or the outlines of a noble tree, when 
the frost has stripped away its summer foliage, and the stem 
and all the branches stand out in bold relief against the blue 
sky. For the special purpose of a defensive argument, there is 
a benefit in this isolation, which brings out into clearer and 
sharper view the solid foundations of the Christian faith. But 
one who loves the truth of the Gospel finds no pleasure in 
dwelling constantly on this naked outline. He longs to see it 
clothed once more with all the rich beauty, the moral power, 
the wisdom, grace, and holiness, which form the substance of the 
Divine message. The Christian who has felt the power of the 
Gospel, and knows the love of Christ, does not willingly remain 
long in the study of outward evidences of the faith. But then, 
if he is candid and thoughtful, he will not despise the labour of the 
spiritual anatomist, however worthless a logical skeleton of 
Christianity may be, until it is clothed upon with spiritual life, 
doctrinal truth, and moral beauty. That aspect of the Christian 
religion, which writers on external evidence, as Lardner and 
Paley, bring out in clear relief, distinguishes it from all the 
blind fancies of superstition, the inventions of human fraud, and 
the dreams of boastful philosophy ; though it needs to be clothed 
upon with the truth of Christian doctrine, and the life of inward 
holiness, before it can duly represent the excellency of the 
Divine gift, or avail for the salvation of the soul. 

4. " Theology had almost died out, when it received a new 
impulse and a new direction from Coleridge. The evidence- 
makers ceased from their futile labours all at once, as beneath 
the spell of some magician." It is not surprising that those 
who replace the real history of sixty years ago by such dreams 
of fancy as these, should be unqualified to appreciate the his- 
torical evidences of Christianity. They fall under their own 
censure : their thesis is purely factitious,, and their historical 
demonstrations are in unreal matter. 

How does the matter really stand ? The Horse Paulinaa and 

2 G 



450 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

the Evidences of Paley appeared in the very crisis and out- 
burst of the French Revolution. What Lardner, in the 
Credibility, had done for men of learning, so as, along with 
others, to drive Deism from that higher field, was done for 
persons of small learning, but plain English sense, in those two 
masterly works. They had few successors in the same kind, 
because, in their own kind, they were felt to be nearly perfect. 
But mere argument can do little against a strong current of. 
popular delusions. The time was come, when facts were to be 
louder than arguments, and the God of the Bible, who is the 
Lord of Providence, was about to take the vindication of his 
truth into his own hands. The reign of terror, the orgies of 
Parisian Atheism, followed by the wars of the Directory, and 
the rise of Napoleon's empire, like a meteor, out of the chaos of 
democratic license, quenched the boastings of infidelity in a sea 
of blood. The system, which had boasted of its power to " crush 
the wretch," was crushed in its turn, under the weight of the 
curse it had brought upon the guilty nations. A powerful 
reaction set in, both on the continent and in our own country. 
Evidence-making ceased, almost of course, when the present 
ifacts of history were the best evidence. To ascribe the change 
7to the writings of Coleridge is a childish fancy, which the 
slightest reference to dates refutes in a moment. When Paley's 
works were written, Coleridge was an enthusiast in the cause of 
revolution, a Unitarian, and almost a Deist, an admirer and 
student of Spinosa. But the events which rapidly succeeded 
each other in France and Switzerland opened his eyes, and 
recovered him to Christian orthodoxy. Until the close of the 
war he was scarcely known to the general public, except as a 
poet, and an able writer for the daily press, and a person gifted 
with unusual powers of conversation. His " Friend," which had 
few subscribers on its first appearance, was republished in 
volumes only in 1818. The " Aids to Reflection " were still 
later. From that date to the close of his life, his influence 
grew continually over young minds, who were entranced by the 
rich melody of his conversation, and the dreamy grandeur of his 
metaphysical theories. But the era of works on evidences had 
ceased thirty years before, when Coleridge was still an enthusiast 
for the infidel democracy of France ; and was succeeded by an 
era of missionary labour and prophetic interpretations, resulting 



NOTES. 451 

alike from the opening of a new and grander page in the history 
of the world. 

III. It is natural to inquire what is the reason of this 
zealous effort to damage the character of Lardner, Paley, and 
the other anti-deistical writers of the last century, and to destroy 
their influence, even at the risk of uprooting, in many minds, 
all faith in Christianity itself. 

The true answer is very apparent to those who have watched 
the subtle working of scepticism in these days. There are 
multitudes who retain a vague, traditional faith in Christianity, 
and a conviction of the moral power and beauty of the Bible, 
but who have a settled aversion to the idea of being subject to 
the authority of a Divine message. Only allow them to read 
the Scriptures as " grand creations of oriental genius," and they 
will gladly adopt large portions into their creed, and praise the 
solemn grandeur of their Hebrew poetry, or the Divine beauty 
of the character of Christ. It is the voice of authority which 
repels them, and turns admiration into settled dislike, that soon 
degenerates into hatred. Now it is the external evidences of 
Christianity which impress on it, unmistakably, the attributes 
of a direct message from the living God. The dislike with 
which writers of the Paley school are regarded by modern 
ideologists, or theological dilettanti, who take up vital subjects 
of theology as an amusing and agreeable relaxation, a field for 
the display of literary talent, is due, not to their defects, but to 
their own distinguishing excellence. They are satirized and 
derided, not because they argue ill, or prove too little, but 
because they prove too much. Dreamy metaphysical theories 
of religion, and of religious progress, are rebuked in the 
presence of the plain, cold, unwelcome reality of a Divine 
message, that speaks with authority to the souls of men. "When 
"the faculty of faith has turned" so completely "inward" as to 
become a settled spirit of unbelief, and refuse all credence to 
outward manifestations of the truth of God, however abundant 
their evidence, then the more simple and unadorned the exhi- 
bition of that evidence, the more unwelcome it must be. It is 
like a handwriting on the wall, in the midst of the self-com- 
placent feasting of learned philosophers, which speaks of the 
presence of a Higher Power, and reminds them of the certainty 
of a coming judgment. Calvin speaks somewhere of "a 

2 G 2 



452 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

laughter which is from the lips outward." It may be safely 
affirmed that the contempt expressed by many recent authors 
for Lardner, Leland, Paley, and Whateley, and works on the 
external evidences in general, is no fruit whatever of profound 
theology, of superior logical penetration to the Horse Paulina?, 
or more solid learning than the Credibility ; but is simply the 
natural repugnance of those who dwell in a region of dream- 
land, of mist and shadow, to the memorials of a stern and 
solemn reality, an actual message from G-od to man, confirmed 
by " signs and wonders and divers miracles, and gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, according to His own will." 



Note B. — The Limits of Keligious Thought. 

The Bampton Lectures of 1858, by Professor Mansel, on the 
Limits of Keligious Thought, have occasioned a lively con- 
troversy on the important question, How far, and in what sense, 
a knowledge of God is really attainable ? The subject is too 
large to be easily compressed into the limits of a note. A few 
remarks on it, however, appear desirable, since it is intimately 
connected with the evidences of the Christian revelation. The 
following maxims, in my opinion, will point out the middle path 
between two dangerous extremes of philosophical dogmatism 
and scepticism, almost equally perilous to the cause of truth. 

1. The contrast between a true and false method of inquiry, 
which Lord Bacon has pointed out in his well-known Aphorisms, 
applies equally to the research of religious truth as of natural 
science. " There are and can be only two ways for seeking and 
discovering truth : one, from particulars, flies off at once to the 
most general axioms, and from these principles judges of and 
invents middle axioms ; and this way is in common use. The 
other, from particulars, derives its axioms by continuous steps, 
so as to arrive in the last place at the most general. This is the 
right method, but is little practised." 

" The understanding, left to itself, pursues the former method. 
For the mind takes pleasure in leaping to the most general 
conclusions, that it may acquiesce in them, and after a brief 
delay soon grows weary of experience. But these evils are 



NOTES. 453 

greatly increased by dialectics, for the sake of making a show 
in disputations." 

" Each method begins with particulars, and rests in the most 
general conclusions, but with an immense difference. For one 
barely touches experience and particular facts, in passiug ; the 
other dwells on them in regular order. One from the first sets 
up some abstract and useless generalizations ; the other rises by 
degrees to those which in reality have a closer intimacy with 
nature. 

" The view of those who hold all kuowledge impossible, and 
our method, agree in some measure in their starting-point, but 
differ immensely in their goal. For they simply maintain that 
nothing can be known; we, that not much can be known by 
the method now in use. But they, in consequence, destroy the 
authority of the sense and understanding ; we devise and supply 
assistance to those faculties." 

2. The main error of Eationalism, viewed in its process, as 
distinct from its results, is the same which Bacon here ascribes 
to the once popular method of scientific inquiry. It rises hastily 
to a few abstract notions of the Divine character and govern- 
ment, and attempts by their means to decide on the claims and 
contents of God's own messages, instead of rising slowly and 
gradually, through a patient study of the contents of Scripture 
and the facts of Providence, to a just appreciation of the ways 
and counsels of the Most High. It does not err in supposing 
that a true knowledge of God is attainable, and that its attain- 
ment forms the noblest and worthiest object of pursuit to 
human reason. Its error consists in a blind confidence in man's 
unaided powers, and a neglect of those aids which God himself 
has graciously provided by direct revelations of His will, and 
consequently an entire reversal, in this higher pursuit, of the 
true laws of inductive inquiry. 

3. The Pyrrhonism to which Bacon alludes, and with which 
he also contrasts his own method, has its counterpart in the 
doctrine which condemns Eationalism, not because its method is 
faulty, but on the ground that its inquiry is hopeless and 
impracticable, and all genuine knowledge of a Being who is 
infinite is impossible and unattainable. 

4. Beason has a threefold office in connection with Divine 
revelation. The first is to ascertain the strength and sufficiency 



454 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

of the evidence which proves its Divine origin. The second is 
to determine the natural meaning of the message. The third 
and highest is to trace out, by patient and reverent thought, 
the internal harmony of the truths actually revealed with an 
enlightened conscience and spiritual understanding, with the 
wants of men and the attributes of God. 

nationalism, or the abuse of reason, may thus reveal itself in 
three different forms. The first is open infidelity, which rejects 
the message because it does not agree with the sceptic's first 
impressions of what is true and reasonable. The second is 
naturalism, which professes to receive the Scriptures but violently 
misinterprets them, in order to get rid of supernatural, mys- 
terious, or obnoxious elements. The third is eclectic Rationalism, 
which claims the right to reject particular portions of Scripture 
history or doctrine, which disagree with its own intuitions of 
Divine truth. 

5. Superstition, in like manner, may assume three different 
forms. The first is that which accepts, blindly and hastily, false 
revelations, whether alone or in addition to the true. The second 
is that which fastens groundless and false interpretations on the 
letter of the Divine messages. The third and most subtle form is 
that which blends the message with false impressions, in which 
its true spirit is obscured and lost ; till a string of formal, lifeless 
dogmas, ill understood and blindly received, replace a living, 
harmonious, and reasonable faith. 

6. False Dogmatism, viewed as the opposite extreme to 
eclectic Rationalism, consists in this third form or stage of super- 
stition. It transfers the certainty which belongs to clearly- 
revealed truths, to human traditions, modes of thought, and 
forms of phraseology, which have become associated with them, 
apart from any insight into their true significance. Thus its 
tendency is to make the use of prescribed phrases a test of 
religious orthodoxy, while the meaning of those phrases remains 
wholly undefined. When carried to its extreme, it combines a 
zealous defence of an established phraseology with the widest 
latitude for secret scepticism and unbelief. 

7. The attempt to lift up reason to the point of view occupied 
by revelation, far from being a vicious extreme, is one of the 
best and noblest instincts of a spiritual mind. It may become 
sinful, and mislead into error, when pursued in a spirit of 



NOTES. 455 

impatience, rashness, or pride; but in itself it is not only 
lawful, but a duty imperative on every intelligent believer of 
the word of God. It is the only means by which we can avoid 
the guilt of offering the blind for sacrifice, or fulfil the great 
commandment — to love God with all our mind, as well as all 
our heart and soul and strength. 

8. A censure of Kationalisin for the radical fault in its method 
of inquiry, for the rashness and irreverence of its tone, and for 
the falseness of particular reasonings, is just and legitimate. It 
may also be illustrated by examples of the readiness with which 
we may involve ourselves in apparent contradiction by abstract 
reasoning on the Divine attributes. But when the censure is 
transferred to the exercise of reason at all on the attributes of 
God, or the contents of a Divine revelation, it becomes an error 
still greater than that which it condemns, and involves an 
assumption, which would undermine the foundations of all 
religion, natural or revealed ; for if nothing can be really known 
of the nature and character of the infinite God, then all revela- 
tion is impossible. 

9. A healthy eye is required for perfect vision, but a previous 
knowledge of the anatomy and structure of the eye is not 
needful. A critical analysis of the human faculties, in their 
bearing on religious truth, is in like manner no condition or 
pre-requisite of a sound and true theology. This must be gained, 
as we gain the knowledge of a landscape — by the direct exercise 
of our faculties on the facts of Providence and the inspired 
messages of God. A criticism of our faculties can be, at most, 
only a useful accessory and supplement. If they cannot be 
trusted when they are directly exercised on the truths of 
religion, they will be still less trustworthy when they are turned 
inward, by a painful effort, to meditate on their own secret 
structure and the limitations of their own powers. 

10. The Absolute and the Infinite, in the language of a philo- 
sophical theology, are terms intended to denote the same 
glorious Being whom the Bible reveals to us — the true and 
living God. Therefore no fuller definition of those terms, no 
reasoning on their consequences, can be just and valid, which 
would be false or even blasphemous when referred to the God 
of the Bible, the great object of Christian faith, worship, and 
love. 



456 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

11. The claim, on the part of a finite and sinful creature, to 
a knowledge of the infinite God, complete and exhaustive, must 
be a hateful presumption, bordering on open blasphemy ; but 
the denial that even a partial knowledge of the infinite God 
is attainable is a contradiction of the whole tenor of the gospel, 
and strikes at the very root of all religious faith. 

12. Infinity, incomprehensibility, are terms denoting an attri- 
bute of the Most High, by which we own that a full and complete 
knowledge of His nature transcends the powers of all created 
understanding. But the Absolute, the Infinite, the Incomprehen- 
sible, rightly understood, are names of God himself. They imply 
a Being, of whom we know that He is, and of whom we believe 
that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ; they 
imply, further, a Being, contrasted in his essential character 
with countless variable and finite beings, the objects of our 
daily thought and observation. A partial knowledge, then, of 
the Absolute and the Infinite is implied in the very use of the 
terms alone ; and when it is denied, they become wholly un- 
meaning. 

13. A true knowledge of God, wholly different from a blind 
faith in a power above us, of which we know nothing, is made 
by our Lord himself the inseparable accompaniment of salva- 
tion. "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we 
worship; for salvation is of the Jews." It constitutes the 
eternal life of the soul : " This is life eternal, to know thee, the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." To 
convey this blessing was the great object of his own mission : 
" No man hath seen .God at any time : the only begotten Son, 
who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed him." 
" We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an 
understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are 
in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ : this is the true 
God and eternal life." Its attainment by sinners is the gracious 
object of all God's messages : " I desired mercy and not sacri- 
fice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." 
And its possession is the means by which every other privilege 
and blessing is conveyed to the soul : " Grace and peace be 
multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God and of 
Jesus our Lord. According as his divine power hath given 
unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through 



XOTES. 457 

the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory~and virtue." 
Ignorance of the true God, in the view of the Bible, is the 
parent of all sins, and the worst of all evils, and knowledge of 
God the first of duties and the fountain-head of every spiritual 
blessing. 



Note C. — The Bible and Ancient Egypt. 

A sekious assault on the historic truth of the Old Testament 
has grown out of the recent progress of Egyptian discovery. 
The large work of Baron Bunsen is almost an extreme instance 
of the Rationalism which degrades the Scriptures below the level 
of merely human histories, and still retains a kind of general 
and abstract faith in Christianity. The Second Essay is an effort 
to popularize the conclusions of this and kindred works, and 
bring them within the reach of the English public, enforced by 
the high authority of so distinguished a scholar and statesman. 
It is no fault of the Essayist if our faith in the Bible survives the 
shock. His own admiration for Baron Bunsen's negative criti- 
cism amounts almost to hero-worship, and rivals that which 
the Baron himself pays to Manetho. " Any points," he says, 
" disputable or partially erroneous, which may be discovered in 
his many works are as dust in the balance compared with the 
mass of solid learning, and the elevating influence of a noble 
and Christian spirit. Our testimony is, where we have been 
best able to follow him, we have generally found most reason to 
agree with him. But our little survey has not traversed his 
vast field, nor our plummet sounded his depth." 

My own experience, the result of careful inquiry, though 
within a narrower limit than the Essayist's, is of a very opposite 
kind. I had been accustomed to regard Baron Bunsen with 
respect and honour, as a philologer and statesman, and a 
Christian, endowed with high and noble qualities ; and even the 
startling paradoxes in some of his earlier works had only slightly 
impaired this favourable estimate, since they might be viewed 
as the mere exuberance of an inaccurate but fertile mind. A 
careful perusal of his great work on Egypt has broken the spell. 
Both in its moral and intellectual aspect, the more I have 



458 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

examined, the deeper has been my disappointment. I looked 
for a reverent and Christian-like treatment of the word of 
God ; and I have been startled by a frequent tone of almost 
contemptuous irreverence. I looked for a careful and exact 
treatment of historical evidence, especially where the result was 
to set aside the constant faith of the whole Church in the earlier 
Scriptures. I have found, instead, amidst an immense mass 
of materials, a spirit of loose hypothesis amounting to intel- 
lectual disease ; repeated instances of flagrant self-contradiction ; 
and a style of logic so elastic as to make premises directly 
opposite yield, with equal facility, the desired conclusion. Deep 
regret that one so gifted should unconsciously injure a sacred 
cause, really clear to his own heart, has changed into a feeling 
of strong indignation that one who bears the name of Christian 
should dare to treat the words of the living God with such 
practical irreverence ; while a fear that his wide research and 
solid learning might create a perplexing temptation to abandon 
faith in the inspiration of the Pentateuch has been succeeded 
by surprise that so much inaccuracy and logical absurdity 
could veil themselves under so imposing a pile of cumbrous 
erudition. 

The time has not yet come when a comparison of the Pen- 
tateuch with the remains of Egypt can warrant a decisive con- 
clusion on the great problems of early chronology. The recent 
discoveries, however important, are still too incomplete ; and a 
suspense of judgment, on several main points, seems still to be 
the only course of true wisdom. The monuments are imper- 
fectly deciphered, and the process of fixing their true order 
is very incomplete, especially in the early reigns. Even if 
their true succession could be defined, there would still remain 
a wide interval between the mere arrangement of the reigns, 
and a complete chronology. Lepsius, Baron Bunsen, and De 
Rouge agree in making light of the testimony of Moses, and 
still they vary from five to thirteen centuries in their estimate 
of the Hyksos period alone. In the present note I can neither 
enter with advantage on so wide a subject, nor attempt a full 
analysis of Baron Bunsen's work. Three hundred pages, now in 
manuscript, are only a small part of the space required for a 
searching and thorough critique of his whole theory. But since 
his high reputation for learning has been turned into a snare, 



NOTES. 459 

to destroy our faith in the Divine authority of the Old Testa- 
ment, it becomes a public duty to illustrate, by a few examples, 
these depths of criticism which the plummet of the Essayist 
cannot fathom, and in which our faith in the Law and the 
Prophets is to be engulfed and disappear for ever. 

I shall select four specimens, by which the reader may judge 
how far the praise of the Essayist is justified, and the errors in 
the Baron's work are as " dust in the balance " compared with 
its exact reasoning and solid learning. They shall be his funda- 
mental date, his reasons for esteem of the true and contempt 
for the false Manetho, his charge of dishonesty against Eusebius, 
and his treatment of the times of Moses and Joshua. Twenty 
others, hardly less instructive, might be produced, if the limits 
of a note would allow. 

I. The main object of Baron Bunsen's work is to prove the 
high antiquity of the Egyptian empire. He supposes the history 
of the world to include twenty thousand years before the 
Christian era ; half of this period he supposes to precede that 
partial and local catastrophe which formed a basis for the 
Hebrew legend of the Deluge, and ten thousand years to follow. 
During five or six thousand years Egypt was under provincial 
governments before Menes, the founder of the united empire, 
including Upper and Lower Egypt. His accession he fixes 
B.C. 3643, or four centuries earlier than the Septuagint date of 
the Flood. The later history is parted into .eleven centuries of 
the Old, nine of the Middle (or Hyksos period), and thirteen of 
the New Empire. 

These views of the time before Menes are confessedly mere 
conjecture ; but from Menes onward he claims to restore an 
almost exact chronology. Its basis is the dynasties of Manetho, 
preserved by Africanus and Eusebius, and compared with a list 
in Eratosthenes of thirty-eight Theban kings. But the numbers 
of those dynasties, as they stand, amount to 5300 years, and 
agree ill with Eratosthenes. The Baron needs, therefore, 
some key by which they may be reduced in amount, and the 
authority of Manetho remain unimpaired. He finds this key in 
a passage of Syncellus, who says, "■ The period of the hundred 
and thirteen generations, described by Manetho in his three 
volumes, comprises a total of 3555 years." The Baron makes 
this passage the fundamental basis of his whole scheme. He de- 



460 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

ducts from it the 1076 years of Eratosthenes, which he assumes 
to be those of the Old Empire, and the years of the New Em- 
pire, adjusted by various conjectures of his own, or 1286 years. 
The remainder, or 1193 years, is a first approximation to the 
Hyksos period, or Middle Empire. But he proceeds to argue 
that Manetho had estimated the Old Empire, less correctly than 
Eratosthenes, at 1347 years, so as to leave 922 years for the 
true length of the Middle Period, and 3284 years for the cor- 
rected length from Menes to Alexander. 

Now this basis of the whole system is a demonstrable and 
flagrant error. Syncellus, it is plain from his whole work, had 
not seen the true work of Manetho, and quotes under his name 
the treatise on the Dogstar — a spurious work, for which 
Baron Bunsen's contempt is as great as his admiration for the 
genuine history. The process by which the number is formed 
can be clearly shewn from Syncellus, with the force of demon- 
stration. He distinguishes it into two parts — 1190 years of 
unreal, and 2365 of historical time, from a.m. 2776, in the 
Alexandrian reckoning, to Nectanebo. But his mistake in con- 
founding the Egyptian with the Macedonian date of Alexander 
has led to a transfer of seven years, and the periods in his 
authorities, Panodorus and Anianus, are 1183 and 2372 years. 
Now the former of these is ten Egyptian cycles, or 14,610 years, 
reduced, by reckoning mythical years as months, to 1183 solar 
or Egyptian years, and reaching from a.m. 1058, the supposed 
year of the descent of the Watchers in the current Christian 
chronology to a.m. 2241, the Alexandrian date of the Deluge. 
All the steps of this curious process of Egyptian forgery, and 
later misconception, can be clearly traced from the statements of 
Syncellus. And it is these mythical 14,610 months, or 1183 
years, of the spurious Manetho, some Egyptian forger of the 
fourth or fifth century, which Baron Bunsen accepts for the 
fulcrum of his whole scheme. After deducting 271 years, to re- 
concile Manetho with Eratosthenes, he transposes the remainder 
from the commencement to the middle of the series, and obtains 
from them his 922 years for the Hyksos period or Middle 
Empire. A detailed proof of these assertions would here be out 
of place, and few readers be able to follow them without some 
previous acquaintance with the subject ; but 1 believe that there 
is scarcely a fact in ancient history, which admits of clearer and 



NOTES. 461 

more decisive confirmation. Even Baron Bunsen's own admis- 
sion, that Syncellus, in every other instance, quotes the false 
Manetho alone, even where his statements contradict those of 
the genuine author, ought to have withheld any careful critic 
from building a pyramid of conclusions on this sandy foundation 
of imposture and delusion. 

II. A leading feature of Baron Bunsen's work is a high and 
extravagant estimate of the historical learning, wisdom, and 
scrupulous veracity of Manetho, and an equal contempt for the 
author of the Dogstar treatise, the spurious work which deceived 
Syncellus, and passed current in the fifth or sixth century under 
Manetho's name. There is no doubt of the spuriousness of this 
later work, and also that the summaries of Manetho in Africanus 
and Eusebius, and the extracts in Josephus, have great historical 
interest and value. But the reasons assigned by Baron Bunsen 
for his opposite estimate, from the cyclical or non-cyclical cha- 
racter of the periods in the two authors, exhaust every variety 
of contradiction and logical absurdity. 

First, at vol. i. p. 72, a summary of the fabulous periods of 
Manetho is followed by the remark, " Neither the numbers for 
the dominion of the Gods, nor the sum of their periods, or those 
of the Manes and Heroes, or the sums of the whole, make up an 
astronomical cycle. ... As regards the purely mythological 
dynasties, there is no reason to believe that Manetho reduced 
the period of the Gods, still less the whole period prior to Menes, 
to Sothiac cycles of 1461 years, or any class of Egyptian astro- 
nomical periods." Now, in reality, after one slight correction 
of xlii. for xiii. in one number, and one c in excess in another, 
the periods in question run as follows, compared with cyclical 
periods, or Sothiac cycles of 1461 years : — 





Years. 




Tears. 


Dominion of Gods . . 


13,900 


Nine and a half cycles 


= 13,880 


Heroes and other kings . 


5,112 


Three and a half cycles 


= 5,113 


Manes and Heroes . . 


5,842 


Four cycles .... 


= 5,844 


Total in Eusebius, 




Seventeen cycles . . 


= 24,837 


13,900 + 11,000 = 


24,900 







Again, the total of the historical dynasties in Africanus is 
5347 years, which, reckoned back from the close, B.C. 342, gives 
B.C. 5789 for the resulting era of Menes. But three complete 



462 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

cycles backward from the Canicular era, B.C. 1322, gives 
B.C. 5802 — an almost exact coincidence, the difference being 
much less than the variations in the list of Africanus. Thus 
the statement of Baron Bunsen, by which he would establish the 
historical character of Manetho's periods, turns out to be the 
very reverse of the truth. 

In his Fourth Book (vol. iii. pp. 84 — 90) the discovery has 
been made, and the critic reverses at once his previous reason- 
ing. " Manetho," he there admits and even affirms, " computes* 
the ante-historic period by Sothiac cycles (iv. p. 96). Bui 
though the mythical periods are arranged by these cycles, and 
even the historical books have their divisions made to depend 
on them, we are now assured that "this is no proof of the 
mythical nature of the Egyptian traditions since Menes, nor of 
Manetho's mystical treatment of them. On the contrary, it is a 
direct proof of the historical character of both !" (vol. iv. p. 90.) 

Thus the numbers of Manetho are proved to be historical, 
first of all, because they have not, and next because they have, 
a cyclical character. Those of the spurious Manetho are pre- 
sently proved to be spurious and unhistorical by the same 
double process. 

" We have already seen that the reigns of the Gods and Heroes, 
according to the book of Sothis (i.e., the spurious Manetho) 
embraces 11,985 years. If we add to that the number of the 
genuine Manetho, which, according to Eusebius, = 24,925 
years, the total will be 36,910 years, or only 385 years more 1 
than 36,525, the great Sothiac cycle (1461 x 25), which it 
was the impostor's object to make up. It is clear, therefore, 
that he introduced the cyclical element into the calculation, 
though wholly foreign to the method of the genuine Manetho. 
It were but waste of time to enter into any further proof of the 
spuriousness of this production." (vol. i. p. 213). 

Here the Dogstar treatise is proved spurious by the presence 
of that cyclical character which, in vol. iv. p. 90, proves the 
numbers of the genuine Manetho to be historical. To make 
the error and confusion worse, the cyclical character, affirmed 
to be present, does not exist. It is absurd to add together the 
numbers of the true and false Manetho, which exclude each 
other, to form a cyclical total, of which the whole fault may be 
thrown on the latter. And, besides, the numbers of the true 



NOTES. 463 

Manetho, as is owned afterwards, are cyclical without the addi- 
tion, and the total thus formed is not cyclical, but differs from a 
cycle by four hundred years ! 

Next, in the Appendix (vol. i. p. 665), this same unhappy 
Dogstar treatise, which has already been proved spurious by the 
presence of a cycle which does not exist, is proved spurious a 
second time by the absence of a cyclical character where it does 
conspicuously exist. " The two tables, I think, are from Africa- 
nus ; one from Berosus, of the ten mythical dynasties of the 
Babylonians, which precedes ; and the other, taken from Ma- 
netho, of the fifteen dynasties of Gods, which presently follows." 

" The numbers are easily restored thus : — Vulcan, 9000 
= 7271 ; Sol, 990 = 80£ ; Agathodasmon, 710 = 56^ ; 
Saturn, 557 = 40^ ; Osiris and Isis, 433 = 35 ; Typhon, 359 
= 29. Total of solar years, 12,051 = 968^ menstrual years. 
It is plain that the years are feigned, because the number of 
solar years assigned to the gods agrees neither with cyclical 
myriads, nor with the cycle of 1461 years. But the words 
which follow shew the source of the figment." 

Here, first, the extract condemned is referred to Africanus, 
who only quotes the true Manetho, and lived before the date of 
the forgery, instead of Syncellus, who knows only the false 
work, and not the true. Next, the reduction is wrongly made, 
so as to form a total of 12,051 instead of 11,985 — the true total 
in Syncellus. Thirdly, the solar years are called lunar, and the 
lunar solar — an oversight twice repeated. Fourthly, the 11,985 
years which are said to have no cyclical character, and therefore 
to be spurious, are spurious for the opposite reason, because they 
are plainly cyclical ; for they denote month-years by the text, 
or 51 x 235 = 11,985 lunations, being 51 metonic cycles, or 
51 x 19 = 969 solar years, the Scripture age of Methuselah, 
and are thus shown to be a Christian fabrication, for the interval 
from the descent of the Watchers, referred to the birth of 
Methuselah, to the flood at his death. Lastly, there is a plain 
reference also to the Canicular cycle of 1461 years. For the 
periods assigned to the nine demigods that complete the list, by 
the Baron's own reduction, amount to 2647 ; but if we take the 
nearest round numbers, are 300, 280, 210, 185, 300, 370, 330, 
400, 250— a total of 2625 ; and 11,985 + 2,625 = 14,610. 
In other words, the whole series is plainly and punctually 



464 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

arranged, so as to form, when unreduced, ten Sothiac cycles. 
Again, in p. 663, these numbers are those of a Christian im- 
postor : " Manethonis nomine impudentissime adhibito." In the 
next page, Baron Bunsen conjectures that the list was borrowed 
by Syncellus from Africanus, who was dead long before his date 
of the Sothiac treatise. In the next page it is transferred to 
the false Manetho once more. 

We have thus four statements, which form a cycle of contra- 
diction. Manetho's numbers, in i. 72, are genuine and historical, 
because they are not cyclical, and in iv. 90, because they are. 
The numbers of the Dogstar treatise, in i. 213, are spurious, 
because they are cyclical in a certain way, and in i. 665, they are 
spurious because they are not cyclical in another way. In these 
latter cases, the cyclical character affirmed does not exist, and 
one does exist, and exist doubly, where its presence is denied. 

III. The charge which Baron Bunsen makes against Eusebius 
is a third illustration of the strange and total want of accuracy 
and solidity in his historical reasonings. 

The main object of the work is to prove that the history of 
Egypt can be restored, from Manetho and the monuments, 
under three main periods — the Old, Middle, and New Empire, 
which he reckons at 1076, 922, and 1286 years. The Middle 
Empire is the famous Hyksos period. Here the monuments 
confessedly furnish little help. The authority of Herodotus and 
Diodorus tends strongly to throw doubt on its very existence. 
Josephus and the Christian fathers all suppose it to be a garbled 
report of the sojourn of the Israelites — a view abandoned, and 
often contemptuously, by most modern Egyptologers. Still, 
their own views on its length, and the nature of the Hyksos or 
Shepherds, vary immensely from each other. Some reckon the 
period at two or three centuries, Lepsius at five, Bunsen at nine, 
and De Rouge at thirteen. It was once the fashion to call them 
Scythians ; and Assyrians, Arabians, Hittites, and other races, 
have in turn been proposed. Baron Bunsen is equally certain 
that they were Shemitic, and that they could not be the 
Israelites. The chronology of the period rests mainly on an 
extract of Manetho in Josephus, and on the Shepherd dynasties 
in the lists of Africanus and Eusebius. Unfortunately, the 
extract in Josephus does not agree fully with either list, and the 
two lists here differ greatly from each other. 



NOTES. 465 

The three dynasties, then, of shepherd kings in Africanus, two 
of them nameless, and none of them confirmed by Eusebius, are 
the main foundation on which Baron Bunsen rears two thousand 
years of Egyptian chronology before Amosis, dismissing the Bibli- 
cal dates with contempt as childish and absurd. It is therefore 
doubly provoking to find his two witnesses completely at variance 
in their testimony, and the result, in the first German edition 
is the following charge of wilful dishonesty against Eusebius. 

" It is hard to see how Eusebius can be cleared from the 
charge of Syncellus, that he has here perverted the text in an 
arbitrary way. . . The moving cause was the unhappy straining 
for synchronisms between the Bible and Egyptian tradition. 
First of all, it was a necessity for him to set the first year of 
Abraham parallel with the first years of the Theban kings, who 
stand before the Hyksos in the lists. He could not place him 
higher, because fourteen dynasties lie in front of him ; nor lower, 
considering Abraham's early place in universal history. Hence 
a twofold necessity : first, he must needs follow the earlier 
Christian chronologers, who place Joseph with the Aphobis of 
the lists of Manetho. But, according to the Seventy, Jacob's 
descent was the two hundred and ninetieth year of Abraham ; 
so that two hundred and ninety years must lie between the first 
Theban kings and Aphobis. Aphobis, too, was a Hyksos king, 
so these Theban kings must form a previous dynasty. Again, 
Moses must stand along with the beginning of the eighteenth 
dynasty, and between him and Jacob's descent there lie two 
hundred and fifteen years. Aphobis, then, must be so placed 
that he may lie two hundred and fifteen years before Amos, and 
two hundred and ninety after the Theban kings. Amos, however, 
was the head of the eighteenth, consequently Aphobis was the 
last Hyksos, and this would be the seventeenth. Those Thebans, 
then, must form two dynasties, a fifteenth and sixteenth, to fill 
up the number of Manethonian dynasties ! . . . Eusebius has 
only one Shepherd dynasty, the first, pared down to one hundred 
and three for two hundred and sixty years ; and this after two, 
called the fifteenth and sixteenth, of two hundred and fifty and 
a hundred and ninety years, invented to fill up the catalogue. 
Such destructive arbitrariness can be outdone only by those who 
accept it, or who even pay it the least regard." 

This very grave charge of direct dishonesty against a father 

2 H 



466 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

of the Church is a condensation of strange and unaccountable 
errors. First, the testing of chronology by synchronisms, 
instead of being foolish and absurd, is the plainest dictate of 
common sense ; and while Eusebius has spent twenty lines on 
such synchronisms between the Bible and Egyptian records, 
or a few pages at most, his censor has devoted to them a 
hundred and thirty pages of his third volume. Taking his 
fault at the worst, Eusebius has tortured Manetho, to make 
him agree with Moses ; and the Baron has tortured, and even 
murdered the inspired narrative, to make it agree with his own 
conjectural view of the numbers of Manetho. 

But this is merely a fault in principle; the errors that 
follow are inversions of plain facts, and still more inexcus- 
able. Every statement, without exception, is wholly untrue. There 
was no necessity at all for Eusebius to make the birth of 
Abraham date with the first year of a Theban dynasty before 
the Hyksos, for that birth has no direct bearing at all on 
Egyptian history. There could be no temptation to inter- 
polate a dynasty for this purpose, since his chief difficulty 
as a Christian chronologer lay in the number and length of 
those which were already on the list. The real temptation, in 
case of mere forgery, would be to replace the two dynasties 
omitted by others as short as possible, like two in Africanus of 
only six years each, and not to interpolate four hundred and forty 
years in lists already perplexing from their length alone. There 
was no need, either from Egyptian or Bible tradition, for i 
Eusebius to place Joseph under the shepherd king Aphobis. 
Baron Bunsen himself holds that Scripture is decisive for an 
opposite view, that the Pharaoh of Joseph was a native prince, 
and not a shepherd. In fact, both in Syncellus and the 
Armenian copy of Eusebius the descent of Joseph seems to fall 
under Archies, and not Aphobis. 

Again, Moses in Eusebius does not " stand along with Amos," 
but a hundred and eighty years lower. Aphobis is not so placed 
as to be " two hundred and fifteen years before Amos," but at 
most only thirty years. He is not placed two hundred and ninety 
years below the Theban kings. The real interval to the last of 
them, to which point alone the alleged necessity could refer, is 
sixty-two years in Syncellus, and eighty-nine in the Armenian 
copy. Neither the Bible history nor any other reason requires 



NOTES. 467 

the birth or the visit of Abraham to have been during a Theban 
dynasty. If this were so, it could never fix the length of 
that dynasty before his visit. The motive alleged for Eusebius 
placing the Hyksos dynasty seventeenth instead of fifteenth, to 
secure two hundred and fifteen years between Aphobis and 
Amos, is the plainest reason possible why such a change should 
not have been made. Lastly, there could be no motive for a 
Christian synchronist to invent one or two dynasties, of a hun- 
dred and ninety, and two hundred and fifty years, to fill up the 
number in Manetho, but a strong reason against the addition ; 
since it could only increase his main difficulty, that the collective 
time of the alleged reigns was already much too long. 

Before 1854, when the second edition of the work on Egypt 
appeared, some notice seems to have been taken, by other critics, 
of the strange errors in this passage. The indictment, therefore, 
against Eusebius, is cast into a new and entirely different form. 
But instead of any expressions of regret for the hasty and absurd 
accusation, the Baron merely complains how tiresome it is to 
be obliged to revise his argument, and to dress up a new indict- 
ment, when his ipse dixit ought to have secured a condemnation 
of the criminal long ago. The new charge runs as follows : — 

" The system of Eusebius was based throughout on the fol- 
lowing principle. He placed the Exodus four hundred and eighty 
years before the building of Solomon's temple, which event the 
Jewish and early Christian calculations had made to synchronize 
with the eighteenth dynasty. Now, in reckoning the four hun- 
dred and thirty years of the sojourn of the children of Israel 
backward from that point, he necessarily made its commence- 
ment to coincide with the seventy-fifth of Abraham, the year of 
promise. The arrival of Jacob in Egypt, however, and the 
power of Joseph, were connected by the early Christian chrono- 
graphers with Aphophis or Aphobis, one of the shepherd kings. 
This synchronism, of course, was not derived from Egyptian 
tradition, and even had it been of Jewish origin, the Bible 
proves that it was without foundation. Of the Exodus, also, he 
had no tradition. The Egyptians, right or wrong, had fixed it 
to the nineteenth dynasty. In Eusebius' time, however, it was 
necessary that these conjectures, which were nothing but a 
wrong calculation, should be sanctioned by the church. What 
was the necessary consequence ? The Hyksos period must 

2 h 2 



468 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

coincide with the received date of Joseph ; and as Aphobis was 
specially entered among the kings of the first Shepherd dynasty, 
Eusebius could only admit one Hyksos dynasty, and was obliged 
to place it immediately before the eighteenth. This had in- 
creased so prodigiously that he could not manage to place 
Joseph earlier than the twelfth year before its commencement. 
Consequently he was obliged to make Aphobis the last king of 
his single Hyksos dynasty, instead of the last but three of the 
first. In addition, he was forced to curtail in a barbarous 
manner his single Hyksos dynasty ; for according- to the 
Septuagint he had but a very short interval of two hundred and 
fifteen years between it and the year of promise, which again he 
could not throw further back on account of the computation of 
the date of the Flood. Hence it is clear that in this interval 
he was obliged to invent an Egyptian dynasty, to supply the 
place of a Shepherd dynasty lost by his calculation. Eor this 
purpose he made the seventeenth dynasty of Manetho, a Theban, 
into the sixteenth, and by inventing a Theban for the fifteenth, 
was enabled to give the first fourteen dynasties a still more 
respectable position. Africanus had not mentioned the names 
of the kings of the last Egyptian dynasties, so that it was an 
easy matter to alter the length as he pleased, to suit his Pro- 
crustean bed. By this means he had the satisfaction of making 
the first year of Abraham coincide with the first year of his 
fifteenth dynasty. 

" The charge made against him by Syncellus is therefore fully 
established. It is peculiarly hard upon a critic in the nine- 
teenth century to be obliged to go through the proof in detail, 
as it ought long ago to have been a settled point that our 
present popular and school chronology (i.e., that of the Bible), is 
a fable strung together by ignorance and fraud, and persisted in 
out of superstition and want of intellectual energy." 

This new and revised indictment is an improvement on the 
first, which was a mass of errors without one grain of truth. 
The present, on the contrary, contains three or four true state- 
ments, along with nearly a dozen falsehoods. We have no 
longer the strange blunder, which imputes to the despised 
Eusebius the actual scheme of the favoured Africanus, and, 
inverting both facts and logic, proves him a forger because of 
his doing the opposite of what he has really done. It is true 



NOTES. 469 

that in his canon, he makes the promotion of Joseph coincide 
with the reign of Aphobis, and the first of Abraham "with the 
first year of the sixteenth dynasty. His introduction, again, of 
the two Theban dynasties before the Shepherds, and shorten- 
ing the time of these last, might bear the construction of a 
designed change, to make the harmonizing of the lists less diffi- 
cult. But the zeal of Baron Bunsen to prove him a forger 
defeats itself, and betrays hini into a series of direct falsehoods. 

First, it is not true that Egyptian tradition, in the time of 
Eusebius, fixed the Exodus in the nineteenth dynasty, and thus 
compelled him to place it lower than Africanus had done. The 
only pretence for the statement is that one disputed passage about 
the lepers in Manetho, which Josephus, Africanus, Eusebius, and 
all the Fathers, believed to be a mere calumny of the heathen, and 
wholly false in its date. One tradition, we learn from Tacitus, 
placed the Exodus under Isis ; and another, in Lysimachus and 
Apion, brought it down to Bocchoris in the time of the Olym- 
piads. Manetho himself referred the founding of Jerusalem, 
the Jewish capital, to the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty. 
Instead, then, of a fixed tradition compelling Eusebius to bring- 
down the Exodus to the date of the leper legend, there were the 
strongest reasons why he should reject that view, like all his 
predecessors — Africanus, Theophilus, Clement, and Tatian. In 
point of fact he has rejected it, and places the Exodus in the 
eighteenth dynasty. 

Again, there was no compulsion which could make him place 
Joseph against his own judgment under Aphobis, and lead him 
to garble the lists for that purpose. In fact, his lists make him 
place the descent of the patriarch, and his first promotion, under 
Archies, and not Aphobis. He has forsaken his predecessors in 
his place of the Exodus — a far more conspicuous event ; and 
there could be no reason, besides his own judgment, which 
could require a closer adherence to precedent as to the time of 
Joseph. In fact, he indicates the true reason for his own arrange- 
ment by his remark, that the Shepherd Kings were probably so 
named, because Joseph and his brethren were received by them 
with favour, and rose to power during their reigns. 

It is equally untrue that the eighteenth dynasty had " grown 
prodigiously " since the time of Josephus and Africanus, so as to 
compel a new arrangement. The change itself is not true. 



470 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Its total in Eusebius is less than that in Josephus by fifteen 
years, and exceeds that of Africanus, merely because the latter 
has transferred the long reign of Rameses to the nineteenth 
dynasty, which Manetho, according both to Josephus and Euse- 
bius, placed near the close of the eighteenth. If Eusebius, then, 
were disposed to curtail the lists in an arbitrary way, it was 
open to him, just as to Africanus or Baron Bunsen himself, to 
leave out some of Manetho's duplicate reigns in Josephus ; the 
very change on which his censor rests one of his own chief claims 
to public approbation. 

Again, the two hundred and fifteen years from the Call to 
Joseph created no necessity at all to mutilate the one Hyksos 
dynasty ; for that contains, in Josephus, only ninety-eight years 
before Aphobis. The assertion, then, is doubly untrue. If 
Joseph's promotion were placed by Eusebius under a shepherd 
king, there could be still less reason, from the Bible, for 
placing the visit of Abraham under a Theban ruler, since his 
stay there must naturally be referred to Lower Egypt alone : and 
if not, ninety-eight years are plainly less than two hundred and 
fifteen ; and the desire to place Abraham's visit conveniently 
could have no influence on a mutilation, which is after Aphobis, 
and not before him. The reason, from the date of the Flood, 
combines an inversion of the fact with a contradiction of all 
sound logic. The Bible date of the Flood is only an inference 
from that of the Call of Abraham, and instead of serving to fix 
the latter, plainly depends upon it, so that whatever raised the 
lower would of course raise equally the higher date. Also the 
motive for change would lie just the opposite way ; since the 
dates of Eusebius for both events are three centuries lower than 
those usual among Christian chronologers, and he is strongly 
censured by Syncellus on this very ground. 

The motive, again, ascribed to him for his asserted invention 
of the fifteenth dynasty, is not only without evidence, but 
plainly ridiculous. He was thus "enabled to give his first 
fourteen dynasties a more respectable position." In other 
words, out of pure caprice he chose to aggravate the main diffi- 
culty which pressed on him as a Christian annalist, which was, 
how to reconcile the book of Genesis with the large total of 
Egyptian dynasties before Abraham. The motives assigned 
for the omission of the two shepherd dynasties after Aphobis, 



NOTES. 471 

and shortening the first, from the relation of Joseph to the 
Exodus have some plausibility, and however false its details, 
the charge itself is intelligible. But the reasons offered for the 
supposed invention of two previous dynasties are a direct inver- 
sion of the manifest truth. If fraud were at work, it must have 
led Eusebius to shorten, and not to prolong, the interval from 
Aphobis to the origin of the empire. 

The appeal to Syncellus, at the close of the extract, completes 
the folly of the whole indictment. For that inconsistent writer, 
after blaming Eusebius severely for departing from Africanus, 
and omitting the two other Hyksos dynasties, adopts precisely 
the same course in his own canon, and even numbers the 
Aphobis dynasty as the seventeenth of Manetho, placing it just 
before Amosis. He even makes the connection still closer than 
in Eusebius, and affirms that Asneth, one of the next suc- 
cessors of Aphobis in Josephus, was the father of Amosis, and 
the true head of the eighteenth dynasty. After such a specimen 
of the wisdom, accuracy, and consistency of Baron Bunsen's 
criticisms, those who still prefer the authority of Moses to that 
of Manetho may bear his charges of " ignorance, fraud, and want 
of intellectual energy " without serious alarm. To secure the 
credit of his own discoveries, he has set himself to the task of 
traducing a Christian bishop and Father of the church, and a 
fatality of blundering seems to have clung to his argument from 
its beginning to its close. 

IY. A fourth example of those depths of criticism, which the 
plummet of the Essayist cannot sound, is Baron Bunsen's recon- 
struction of the times of Moses and Joshua. 

The books of Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua, 
tell us plainly that forty years were spent in the wilderness ; 
that Moses died at the close of the fortieth year, not long after 
Aaron and Miriam, on the east of Jordan ; that Joshua then 
took the lead, and his first public act was the passage of the 
river ; that the conquest occupied six years, till forty-five had 
elapsed from the second year of the Exodus ; and that Joshua died 
*t a long time after," at the age of a hundred and ten years. 
But the text does not state the exact age of Joshua at the 
crossing of Jordan, nor the interval from his death to the first 
captivity. Josephus, either from conjecture or tradition, assigns 
twenty-five years for the time from the passage of the river to- 



472 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

the death of Joshua, and eighteen more to the first servitude. 
The statement is part of a sentence : " Thus Joshua died, 
having lived a hundred and ten years, of which he spent forty 
with Moses in learning what was useful, and after his death 
became leader for twenty-five years." 

How does Baron Bunsen deal with these statements ? When 
we read, he says, that Joshua led the people over Jordan in the 
fortieth year, " that is assuredly an historical number, and not a 
mode of expressing an indefinite number of years. But it is 
equally certain they could not have reached the country east of 
Jordan only in the fortieth year after the Exodus, but must have 
done so as early as the third year — an inference resulting from 
the facts of the journey through the peninsula of Sinai." In 
the book of Judges all the facts are historical, and the Epos 
consists in the use of the number forty. Here, on the contrary, 
in the first canto of the Epos, the number is historical, and it is 
the facts alone which are fictitious and untrue. 

The argument proceeds : " The career of Moses closed on the 
northern point of the Dead Sea, over against Jericho. The 
larger portion of the thirty-seven years and a half must there- 
fore be assigned to Joshua. But there are further proofs that 
his leadership commenced long before they crossed over. In 
the first place, the name of Moses is never mentioned in any 
expeditions beyond the northernmost point of the Dead Sea ! 
(Compare Num. xxi. 32 — 35 ; xxxii. 1 — 19, 33, 34 — 42 ; xxxvi. 
1, 2 ; Deut. ii. 26—37 ; iii. 1—17 ; iv. 41—43 ; xxix. 7, 8 ; 
xxxi. 4 ; Josh. i. 14, 15 ; xiii. 7 — 33.) Joshua's campaigns in 
Canaan, and the settlement of the other seven (nine ?) 
tribes and half, according to the testimony of old tradition, 
lasted only five or six years. Now, as according to the 
consistent narrative of the compiler the journeying of Moses 
had lasted forty years at his death, five, or rather six, years 
had elapsed since the second year of the Exodus, in which 
Caleb was sent out (meaning apparently, " since the cross. 
ing of Jordan"). From that time forward nothing definite 
is related of Joshua's acts. The addition to the course of the 
narrative is doubtless actually true, but these occurrences did 
not take place during the life of Joshua, but immediately 
after his death. If, then, we admit, as we are bound to do, the 
forty years as a fixed chronological date, the greater part of the. 



NOTES. 473 

tliirty-seven years and a naif must be assigned to Joshua. As 
regards Ms leadership, nothing is said {i.e. in Josephus !) as to 
how many years belong to it on this side of Jordan, and how 
many in Canaan itself. We are justified in concluding that 
he lived not more than one year in Canaan after the tribes were 
settled, consequently in all seven years. The only mode of 
defining the personal leadership of Moses is to limit it by the tra- 
ditional notice of the length of that of Joshua. As the latter 
lasted eighteen years on the east of Jordan, there remain twenty- 
two for that of Moses. The whole of the first two, and part of the 
third, belong to the journeyings in the peninsula of Sinai. There 
remain nineteen years for the gradual conquest and settlement 
of the country east of Jordan to beyond the northern point of 
the Dead Sea. We will conclude these allusions by a tabular 
survey of the forty years, and the leadership of Joshua : — 

1320. Nisanl5. Exodus from Egypt. 
1319. Second month. Departure from Sinai. 
1318. Nisan. Death of Miriam, Akaba. 
Middle. Arrival at Brook Zared. 
1317-1315. Advance to north of Dead Sea. 
1299. Death of Moses. 
1298. First year of Joshua (18 y.) 

1281. Last year east of Jordan. Conquest and settlement. 
1280 Passage over Jordan. 
1279-5. Six years war in Canaan. 
1274. Death of Joshua, 47th year of Exodus." 

The main feature of this scheme is very clear. The length of 
Joshua's leadership beyond Jordan is not stated in the Bible. 
But since he died at the age of a hundred and ten, was a young- 
man Exod. xxxiii. 11, and was probably as old or slightly older 
than Caleb, it is fixed within a narrow limit. If he were forty 
at the Exodus it would be thirty years ; and since he could 
hardly be more than forty-five, it would be at least twenty-five 
years. Josephus, either from tradition, or from a reckoning of 
this kind, calls it twenty-five years. This one number of 
Josephus, thus obtained, Baron Bunsen makes a lever to over- 
turn all the data from which it has been borrowed — the forty 
years of Moses in the wilderness, the forty years of Joshua's 
service under him, inferred from Scripture, and affirmed by 
Josephus, the " long time " which Joshua survived after the 
settlement, and his age at his death. This parricidal date does 



474 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

not spare one of those from which it derives its own birth. If 
the object had been proposed to falsify as many texts as 
possible, and introduce the maximum of contradiction into a 
consistent narrative, the success could not be more complete 
than in this original scheme. 

Let us compare its results, as briefly as possible, with the 
statements of the inspired text. " The children of Israel did eat 
manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited ; they 
did eat manna until they came to the borders of the land of 
Canaan." (Exod. xvi. 35.) By the new scheme they reached 
an inhabited land within three years, and began at once to take 
possession. " Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed 
not from the tabernacle." (Exod. xxxiii. 11.) By the new 
scheme he was then sixty-three years old. " Joshua, the son of 
Nun, a servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and 
said, My lord Moses, forbid them." (Num. xi. 28.) The young 
man was then, by the improved scheme, sixty-four years old. 
"Your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years." 
(Num. xiv. 33, 34.) This means a year and a half from the 
threatening, after which they were to begin to conquer and take 
possession. "Aaron died on Mount Hor, in the fortieth year, 
the first day of the fifth month, being a hundred and twenty-three 
years old." (Num. xx. 22 — 29 ; xxxiii. 38, 39.) This means 
that he died in the third year, being then eighty-six years old. 
Aaron and Moses were both forbidden to enter the land for 
their sin at Meribah, and died six months asunder. (Num. xx. ; 
xxxiii.; Dent, xxvii. 12—19; i. 37; xxxii. 48—51.) This 
means that Aaron died a few months after their sin, and Moses 
went on conquering, and settling the people in their new pos- 
sessions for nineteen years. " The space until we passed over 
the brook Zered was thirty-eight years." (Deut. ii. 14.) This 
means one whole year and part of another. " Moses sent to spy 
out Jezer." " Og, the king of Bashan, went out to meet them, 
and the Lord said to Moses, Fear not, for I have delivered him 
into thy hand, and thou shalt do to him as thou didst to Sihon." 
(Num. xxi. 9 ; Deut. iii.) " In the fortieth year, in the eleventh 
month, on the first day, Moses began to declare this law." 
(Deut. i. 3.) He had been dead, by the new scheme, eighteen 
years before. " After he had slain Sihon, king of the Amorites, 
which dwelt in Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan." By the 



NOTES. 475 

revised scheme they were untouched, and in the height of their 
power, till his death. " Then Moses severed three cities on 
this side Jordan, Bezer, Rainothgilead, and Golan." (Deut. iv.) 
They were still, when he died, in the hands of the Amorites. 
" Thou shalt remember all the way the Lord thy God hath led 
thee these forty years in the wilderness." (Deut. viii. 1.) The 
whole time, when Moses spoke, by the new scheme was twenty- 
two years, and nineteen of them had been spent in conquering 
and taking possession. " I am a hundred and twenty years old 
this day." (Deut. xxxi. 2.) A hundred and two at most, but 
more probably eighty-two or eighty-four (comp. iii. 184). 
Joshua was still alive " a long time after the Lord had given 
rest to Israel." (Josh, xxiii. 1.) He survived one year, and no 
longer. 

It is needless to spend more words on this reconstruction of 
the sacred history. A simple rejection of the whole, as mere 
legend, is far more logical and more honest than the pretence of 
extracting history out of these Divine records, by reversing their 
plainest declarations, falsifying every single date, and turning 
their clear and consistent narrative into a mass of hopeless and 
inextricable confusion. These four examples will perhaps be 
enough to relieve the fears of some simple-minded readers of the 
Second Essay, who may have suspected that the truth and 
authority of the law and the prophets are in real danger of being 
overthrown by the " mass of solid learning " and depths of 
searching and profound logic in Baron Bunsen's two thousand 
four hundred pages on " Egypt's Place in the World's History." 
It is written of two learned Egyptians, who set themselves 
against Moses in early times, that " their folly was made manifest 
to all men ;" and possibly some who have succeeded to their 
employment in these days may be in danger of a similar result 
from their unhallowed labours. 



Note D. — The Human Element in Scripture. 

The importance of recognising fully the human element in 
Scripture, as one integral part of the true doctrine of inspira- 
tion, is hardly felt, as it ought to be, by some who are zealous 



476 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

for the Divine authority of the Bible. They seem to think that, 
when once we have got the book itself, and owned it to be the 
word of God, all reference to the human authorship is com- 
paratively trivial and superfluous. 

A simple reference to the analogy between the personal and 
the written word ought to remove this hasty impression. God is 
infinitely higher than man. But the doctrine of our Lord's true 
Godhead is not infinitely more important than the doctrine of 
his true humanity. On the contrary, the heresy of the Gnostics 
and the Docetse rivals, in its practical danger and evil, the 
opposite heresy of Cerinthus. Our faith and hope must rest on 
a true Incarnation and a real Atonement ; and this implies the 
double truth, that our Lord is " God over all, blessed for ever ;" 
and that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," 
and there is " one Mediator of God and man, the man Christ 
Jesus." "When either element of the great truth is withdrawn, 
its practical power disappears. A due recognition, then, of the 
human element in the written word is, practically, almost as 
important as the admission of its Divine authority. The Ten 
Commandments alone were written miraculously on tables of 
stone by the finger of God, but the Bible has been communi- 
cated in a different way. Moses and the Prophets, Apostles 
and Evangelists, are the human messengers employed by the 
Spirit of God. A feature so prominent in the plan of revela- 
tion cannot be trivial or unimportant. To exclude the writer, 
and include only a written product, in our view of inspiration, 
contradicts the usual law of Scripture phraseology, and tends to 
obscure seriously one main feature of Divine wisdom in the 
gift of these messages to mankind. 

Inspiration, the inbreathing of the Holy Spirit, in strictness of 
speech, plainly belongs, not to the written message, but to the 
messenger alone. It denotes that secret action of the Spirit on 
the faculties of a living messenger, by which he is enabled 
faithfully to receive, utter, or record, the Divine message. 
Speaking strictly, the qualities of the message are truth and 
Divine authority, and are the results of the messenger's in- 
spiration. Holy men of God speak, as breathed into, or borne 
along, by the Holy Ghost ; and Scripture is the result of 
that sacred influence, embodied and recorded in a written form. 

How do we rise to a true apprehension of the glory of the 



NOTES. 477 

Incarnate Word of God? Clearly not by embracing the 
Eutychean heresy, which represents the human nature as lost 
and extinguished by its union with the Divine. The lowly 
birth, the hunger and thirst, the weariness and sorrow, the 
human words and looks and tears of the Son of man, are the 
means by which alone we obtain a true knowledge of the 
Saviour, and are able to discern, in all its fulness, that " love of 
Christ which passeth knowledge." In like manner we must 
attend thoughtfully, and with reverence, to the human features 
of the written word, in order to discern clearly its wisdom and 
heavenly beauty as a series of messages, clothed with Divine 
authority, from the living God to the children of men. 

The first result of this admission is the great canon of natural 
interpretation. Scripture must be received in the natural 
sense of the words, as the spoken and written language of 
men. Inspiration does not create artificial rules of construc- 
tion, or deter the sacred writer from the usual and inevitable 
latitude in the truthful conveyance of information from man to 
man. Metaphors are still metaphors, and round numbers are 
round numbers; and records of discourses have the same 
liberty of condensation or selection, in contrast to mere verbal 
facsimiles, which belongs to similar cases in purely human 
writings. 

A second result, more minute, but still important, is that due 
regard should be paid to the place, time, and circumstances of 
the sacred writer, in deciding on all the more delicate questions 
of Bible interpretation. The New Testament must be read and 
expounded as Hellenistic Greek, and the Old Testament as the 
work of Hebrew writers. The language, in all doubtful cases, 
must be understood according to its use in the days when the 
writer lived, so far as this can be ascertained. The direct bene- 
fit of this rule, it is true, is limited to secondary shades of 
thought, hard to perceive in the best translation. The main 
substance of the message involves those human elements alone, 
which are common to every age and clime ; and thus no book, 
perhaps, loses so little as the Bible by translation into other 
tongues. Still, there are beauties and delicacies of thought, an 
increased vividness of impression, and a deeper sense of historical 
reality, reserved to reward the pious student, who resorts to the 
fountain-head, and studies the Scriptures in the original, striving 



478 THE BIBLE AND MODEBN THOUGHT. 

to place himself, in. thought, by the side of the sacred writers 
themselves. The soul is thus raised out of its own narrow 
sphere of thought, comes into closer contact with the words of 
God, and gains a deeper and firmer hold on the reality and 
living power of the whole message. 

The principle affirmed in the text, when practically applied, 
is the same with the law of interpretation laid down by Pro- 
fessor Fairburn, in his Hermeneutical Manual, and quoted with 
just approval by the author of the Bible and its Critics, p. 385. 
"The interpreter must endeavour to attain to a sympathy in 
thought and feeling with the sacred writers, whose meaning he 
seeks to unfold." Let us apply the rule in succession, to the 
Histories, Psalms, Proverbs, Prophecies, and Epistles. 

I. The human element, in the historical books, implies a 
clear and full perception of the truth that the writers are genuine 
witnesses, who are bearing a real and intelligent human testimony 
to the facts they record. In some cases they are eye-witnesses, 
in others, diligent and honest inquirers ; and in a few others, 
truthful reporters of facts of past history supernaturally 
revealed. An exact knowledge of the name and circumstances 
of each writer is not necessary in every case, and has not been i 
always given. But in the Law and the Four Gospels, the 
historical groundwork of the two Covenants, this definite 
information has been given, and forms a main element in their 
authority. Whenever the genuineness of the Books of Moses, 
or of the Gospels, is denied, the first downward step is taken, 
which leads almost inevitably, at a later stage, to the entire 
rejection of the Divine authority of the whole Bible. The words 
of our Lord are like a key to the whole philosophy of unbelief. 
" Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he 
wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye 
believe my words ?" 

The Pentateuch is the first main portion of the sacred 
history, the basement or pedestal on which all the later books 
repose. The human element, in the doctrine of its inspiration, 
consists in its being the genuine work of Moses ; the Divine, in 
its being a real gift from the Spirit of God, and composed under 
his heavenly teaching and guidance. Experience and reason 
prove alike that these two elements are so closely united, as to 
be virtually inseparable. Once deny the Mosaic authorship, 



NOTES. 479 

and the strongest pledge for the Divine authority of the book 
disappears, and is replaced by a presumption of its merely 
human character ; and indeed that it is nothing better than a 
skilful and successful forgery. How can we possibly believe 
that a series of Divine messages have begun with an open 
fraud on the credulity of mankind? When once the Pen- 
tateuch is supposed to be a compilation in the days of 
Solomon or Josiah, ingeniously patched together by two or 
three unknown hands, and then offered to the Jewish people 
under the false character of the writing of Moses, all faith 
in its inspiration must perish, unless we extend the meaning 
of the phrase, and apply it to the work of seducing spirits 
of darkness. On the other hand, when once the human 
element is received, and the genuineness allowed, the presump- 
tion for its Divine authority becomes firm, clear, and im- 
pregnable. The fact that Moses was the writer is a pledge for 
the truth of the main outline of its later history. The truth of 
that outline involves, in every page, the reality of visions and 
Divine messages which Moses received. The authority of the 
separate messages, thus placed on record, becomes a further 
pledge, that the same high privilege of Divine teaching and 
guidance would be vouchsafed to the Prophet and Lawgiver, 
when he was called to embody the Law of God, and the acts of 
his Providence, in a written and permanent record. The 
genuineness of the Pentateuch, the human element in its com- 
position, is thus the logical starting point, by which alone we 
are guided into the apprehension of its true character, as the 
word of the living God, the pure and holy fountain-head of all 
later revelations to mankind. 

In. the Four Gospels the importance of the human element is 
hardly less conspicuous. It is the sentence of the Law, that 
" in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be 
established." But in the history of our blessed Lord four 
testimonies have been provided, and though each is distinct, 
they have been closely woven together into one seamless robe 
of historical truth. One evident purpose, fulfilled by this 
peculiar structure of the narrative, is to secure, by the 
concurrence of four human witnesses, so strong and clear a 
proof of reality in the Divine portraiture, as to force convic- 
tion upon every thoughtful and candid mind. To neglect the 
human authorship, in this case, is thus to run counter to the 



480 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

plain design of the Holy Spirit, in choosing this particular 
form for the message. It turns the pledges of truth and sincerity, 
in the voice of the four Evangelists, into stumbling-blocks and 
paradoxes, and robs the Gospel of one main element in their 
moral power, by which the truth of the Divine biography is 
written deep in the heart and consciences of men. 

The importance of the human element, in the case of the 
Four Gospels, may perhaps be seen still more plainly in the 
singular graduation they reveal to us on a closer view. Two of 
them are written by Apostles, and one of them by that Apostle 
who was favoured above the rest by especial intimacy with the 
Lord, " the disciple whom Jesus loved." Another was written 
by a companion of the two chief Apostles, and the merely human 
element seems thus to be more prominent by the removal of the 
writer, one step, from the innermost circle of the Divine influence ; 
but in all other respects its features are the same. Another is 
not only written by a companion of an Apostle, but is introduced 
by a statement of the human research and diligence of its 
writer, and is followed by a sequel, which resembles closely, in 
all its main features, a careful human history of the first gene- 
ration of the Church of Christ. But while the human element is 
thus doubly conspicuous in the writings of St. Luke, lest we should 
on this account deny then inspiration, or assign them a lower 
degree of Divine authority, this Gospel is the only one, which 
has a distinct and express sanction from the greatest of the 
Apostles, and one sentence of which is placed by him on 
a level with the books of Moses, foremost and highest in 
honour, among the Jews, of the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment. So marvellously compacted is the written word, in all 
its parts, by the Divine wisdom ; which never permits us to 
lose sight of the human authorship, by which it appeals to the 
general conscience and experience of mankind, while it reveals a 
unity, sometimes conspicuous, sometimes half-concealed, that 
bespeaks to every thoughtful Christian the common author- 
ship of the Spirit of God. 

II. In the Psalms, the importance of the human authorship 
is even still more apparent than in the histories themselves. 
Their most conspicuous feature is that they are voices of a 
human heart, in its varied experiences of joy and trial, and its 
inward communion with God. They cannot be understood 
without a continual reference to the feelings, emotions, and 



NOTES. 481 

personal history of "the anointed of the God of Jacob, the 
sweet Psalmist of Israel." One reason why the life of David is 
recorded at greater length than any other sacred biography, the 
Son of David alone excepted, is clearly that a key might thus 
be supplied for the fuller understanding of the various experi- 
ences, embodied in these hymns of meditation, prayer, and 
praise. Nearly twenty of the Psalms refer us, by their heading,, 
to the time and occasion, in the life of the Psalmist, when they 
were composed. A reference, then, to the circumstances under 
which they were written, to the feelings and emotions of the 
Psalmist himself, and the gushing tide of joy or sorrow, of fear 
or hope, of holy musing or devout adoration in his heart, far 
from being superfluous because of their Divine inspiration, is the 
appointed means by which alone we can enter fully into their 
treasures of spiritual experience. The sacred text itself leads us 
gently by the hand. The words of fear and complaint, mingled 
with hope and trust in God amidst threatening dangers, are 
" a Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son." The 
profession of uprightness and sincerity, the prayer against 
prosperous wickedness, the warning of judgment upon iniquity, 
and the song of praise in the midst of reproach and trouble, are 
" Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning 
the words of Cush the Benjamite." The eighteenth Psalm is a 
tribute of praise, " when the Lord delivered him from the hand 
of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul ;" and the fifty- 
first is " a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came 
unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." Any view of 
the inspiration of the Psalms must therefore be fallacious 
and untrue, which turns them into abstract voices of the Spirit, 
and neglects the personal element in those last words of the 
sweet Psalmist of Israel — " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, 
and his word was in my tongue." Deny their special inspira- 
tion, and the Psalms of David, however degraded below their 
true dignity, might still retain a high place among the noblest 
and purest utterances of the human heart, in its breathings of 
desire and holy adoration. But deny their human reality, and 
their inspiration itself would become a lifeless and unintelligible 
paradox, and their moral power, as the noblest models of devo- 
tion, pass entirely away. 

The words of our Lord are a direct attestation to the 

2 i 



482 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

importance of this human element in the Psalms, even with 
reference to their doctrinal interpretation. " What think ye of 
Christ ? whose son is he ? They say unto Him, The son of 
David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit 
call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on 
my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool ? If 
David then call him Lord, how is he his son ?" This question, 
which silenced the Pharisees, and was an implied but evident 
assertion, by our Lord, of his own Divine glory, depends for its 
whole force on the asserted fact, that David himself was the 
author of the 110th Psalm. Its being a voice of the Spirit 
taken alone, would lead to a false doctrine, instead of a great 
and holy truth. It is because David was the writer, though he 
spake " in spirit " or under prophetic influence, that the title of 
Messiah "my Lord" received its deep significance and became a 
proof of his twofold nature, expressed more fully in his own 
words, " I am the root and the offspring of David, and the 
bright and morning star." 

III. The Book of Proverbs exhibits, almost equally with the 
Psalms, the importance of a due regard to the human author- 
ship, if we would enter into the full meaning of the Divine 
messages. As David was the most deeply experienced, and the 
most devout of the Old Testament writers, so his son was marked 
out, by the express promise of God, as the wisest in all earthly 
wisdom. It is not without a weighty reason that such a 
messenger was chosen to convey to the church these varied pro- 
verbs, rich with the lessons of practical experience. If St. 
Paul wrote his Epistles "according to a wisdom given unto 
him," the same is true of these Proverbs of Solomon. His part 
was not that of a mere amanuensis, but of one first made 
eminently wise, and then commissioned, from the depths of a 
living experience, to communicate the choicest fruits of that 
wisdom for the instruction and guidance of every later genera- 
tion. Even the structure of the work, with its nine opening 
chapters of direct appeal to the young, and with its supplement 
in " The proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king 
of Judah, copied out," " The works of Agur the son of Jakeh, 
even the prophecy," and lastly, " The words of king Lemuel 
(Hezekiah ?) the prophecy that his mother taught him," is a 
constant admonition to bear in mind the human authorship, 



NOTES. 483 

and to see in these proverbs some precious results of God's gift 
of wisdom, when bestowed on the noblest and wisest of his 
servants in the days of old. 

IV. Prophecy, more plainly than history, hymns or psalms 
of praise, or proverbs of wisdom, is a supernatural gift. We 
may expect, therefore, the higher element of Scripture, or 
the Divine authorship, to be most prominent in the books of 
prophecy, and the human agency, though still present, to retire 
comparatively into the shade. Accordingly, we find here a 
large portion which appears to be given by immediate dictation 
from " the Lord God of the holy prophets," while the human 
author is only the instrument by whom the message, Divinely 
revealed, is conveyed to his fellows. Thus we read of " The 
vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz," and again " The word that he 
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem." " The Lord spake unto 
me again." "The Lord spake thus unto me with a strong 
hand ;" while "Thus saith the Lord" is the frequent preface of 
the prophetic visions. The style of Jeremiah is the same. 
" The word of the Lord came unto me," " Thus said the Lord 
unto me," and " The word of the Lord came unto me a second 
time." In Daniel, again, the prophecy of the Scripture of 
truth, we are plainly taught, was directly dictated to the 
beloved seer by the revealing angel. From Isaiah to Malachi, 
the main feature conspicuous is that of a series of direct and 
immediate messages from God. 

Even here, however, the human aspect of the prophecy is not 
permitted wholly to disappear from our view. Besides the 
differences of style and manner, which indirectly imply that 
the message was modified in form according to the instrument 
chosen for its conveyance, historical passages or allusions are 
mingled throughout, which compel us to remember the circum- 
stances of the prophet, in tracing out the full meaning of his 
message. Such is the vision in Isa. vi., the history in Isa. vii., 
which introduces the noted prophecy of Immanuel, the record 
in Isa. viii. 1 — 8, the statement in Isa. xx., and the four chapters 
of interposed history, which link together the two main series 
of the prophetic visions. Such, again, are the histories in Jer. i., 
xiii., xiv., xviiii-xxii., xxiv., xxv-xxix., xxxii-xxxvi., xxxix-xliv., 
lii., and Ezek. i., iv., v., viii-xi., xx., 1, 2 ; xxiv., xxix., xl., 1-4, 
and the first half of the Book of Daniel. The time, age, 

2 I 2 



484 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

circumstances, and personal history of the prophet, in the greater' 
part of these messages, form one essential feature of the Divine 
gift; and cannot be overlooked or forgotten without serious 
loss, and the risk of frequent misconception of their true mean- 
ing. We must place ourselves by the side of the prophet, or we 
shall distort the prophecies from their true perspective, and the 
real harmony which pervades the whole series of these revela- 
tions will be obscured from our view. 

This truth is confirmed by the phraseology of the New Testa- 
ment. The name, Scripture, applied to parts of the Old Testa- 
ment, occurs about fifty times ; but the name of Moses occurs 
about forty times, and the personal mention of the prophet or 
prophets, about seventy times, when a similar reference is made 
to their writings. Out of the three main passages in the 
Epistles, which affirm the doctrine of inspiration, two retain the 
same distinctness of personal allusion to the messengers them- 
selves. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." 
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in 
time past to the fathers by the peophets, hath in these last 
days spoken unto us by his Son." " Prophecy came not ever 
by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost." That aspect of the doctrine must 
surely be of high practical importance, which the Spirit of God 
himself keeps so continually in our view. 

Y. The human element, in the Epistles, is quite essential to 
a just understanding of their nature, and also to secure a deep 
insight into their historical allusions and secret mysteries of 
Divine truth. The key is given us by St. Peter, when he de- 
scribes the letters of his brother Apostle, St. Paul, in those well- 
known words : " Even as our beloved brother Paul also, accord- 
ing to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you." 

The statement here made is distinct and decisive. For 
wisdom is a personal gift, and one of the highest kind. The 
" word of wisdom " ranked foremost among the gifts of the Spirit 
in St. Paul's own enumeration. In the Epistle to the Eomans, 
the handwriting by which it first became Scripture was that of 
Tertius, but the wisdom from which it flowed was that of St. Paul 
himself, while the original fountain of that wisdom was the 
Holy Spirit of God. There was no inspiration in Tertius, more 
than in any later copyist. The true inspiration was in the 



NOTES. 485 

heart and mind of the great Apostle, enduing him with all 
those varied treasures of spiritual wisdom which he pours forth, 
under the guidance of the Spirit, for the lasting instruction of 
the Church of Christ. His personality, as the Apostle of the 
Gentiles, the converted blasphemer and persecutor, never 
disappears. The truths he proclaims are steeped in the depths 
of his own experience, that they may fasten themselves with 
greater power on the hearts of his readers. The voice does not 
come to us direct from the Spirit, but refracted through the 
heart and mind of his chosen messenger, and a human undertone 
may be heard in every part of the Divine melody. " Unto me 
who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that 
I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
Christ." " Who before was a blasphemer, and a persecutor and 
injurious, but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in 
unbelief. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the 
only wise God, be honour and glory for ever, Amen." 



Note E. — Genesis and Geology. 

Since the publication of this work, two Essays have appeared, 
in the Eeplies, and Aids to Faith, by Mr. Eorison and Dr. 
M'Caul, on the Mosaic cosmogony, and the objections to the 
inspiration of the Pentateuch, occasioned by the discoveries of 
modern geology. These differ widely from each other, and 
their views on several main points are diametrically opposite. 
Both in style and in accuracy of reasoning, the essay of Dr. 
M'Caul is, in my opinion, very greatly to be preferred ; but still 
its line of thought is not wholly the same with that I have 
followed in the text. An objection has also been made on 
another ground, that it is not wise to rest the defence of 
Scripture on one alternative alone, when several others are 
possible. It seems desirable, then, to enter further into the 
whole argument. 

First, the attempt to single out any mode of reconciliation 
between Scripture and geology is held, by some persons, to be 
needless and unwise. When our object is purely defensive, and 



485 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

several alternatives are possible, why should one be selected 
above the rest, for preference and approbation ? 

The answer to this inquiry, I think, is very simple and 
decisive. The price which must be paid for so wide a latitude 
of choice is very costly. It requires two conditions, that we 
are content to remain equally in doubt with regard to the dis- 
coveries of science, and the true meaning of the words of God. 
Total ignorance admits of many alternatives, perfect know- 
ledge of none. Just in proportion as our knowledge grows, the 
latitude of doubtful choice is lessened ; for the truth stands out 
in clear relief, and suffers no falsehood to share its claims. It is 
easy, no doubt, for men of science to exaggerate their own dis- 
coveries, and to confound plausible and uncertain guesses with 
conclusions established firmly on solid evidence. But the most 
unsatisfactory way of defending Scripture from the assaults of 
unbelief, is to practise a double scepticism ourselves as to the 
real discoveries of science, and the natural force of words in the 
sacred text. 

Truth is one, error is manifold. Defences of truth from the 
assaults of unbelief must gain in moral power, when they are 
precise and definite. When many doubtful alternatives, most of 
which must be false, and none of which is held to be certainly 
true, are put forward to oppose a well-defined and confident 
error, the moral effect on the mind of an earnest adversary will 
be slight indeed. If twenty alternatives are proposed for recon- 
ciling the words of Moses with the facts of geology, nineteen of 
them must be untrue. Their plausibility must be due to our 
ignorance alone. Their moral effect is simply to weaken the 
force of the true explanation, and to degrade it to their own 
level, as one out of many expedients for escaping from an unwel- 
come conclusion, rather than a well-grounded and honest con- 
viction, the fruit of deliberate and conscientious inquiry. 

In the present question there seem to be only four alterna- 
tives, apart from secondary details, really distinct from each 
other. The first is the sceptical hypothesis of the Fifth Essay, 
that the words of Moses are an untrue cosmogony, a mistaken 
guess, contradicted by the discoveries of science. The second is 
that they are a poem, an ideal narrative, not intended to be 
taken as strict and literal truth. This is the view of Mr. 
Hughes, in the Tracts for the People, of Mr. Huxtable, and 



NOTES. 487 

of Mr. Borison in the Eeplies. The third holds them to be 
a real narrative, in which the days are long periods, and in- 
clude a large portion of geological history. This is the view of 
Hugh Miller, in the Testimony of the Eocks, and with 
some important differences, of Dr. M'Caul in his recent 
Essay. The fourth holds that the account is real narrative, 
and the days literal, and that the periods of geology are implied 
in the second verse, but passed over in silence. I propose to 
examine these alternatives afresh, in connection with the recent 
essays. 

I. The Essay in the Eeplies, on the Creative Week, begins 
with a true aphorism. " There is no attaining a satisfactory 
view of the mutual relations of science and Scripture, till men 
make up their minds to do violence to neither, and to deal faith- 
fully with both." But it is much easier to recognise the justice 
of this general maxim, than to carry it out in practice, when two 
authorities, each seeming worthy of full confidence, appear to 
disagree. Even where there is the most sincere intention to 
offer no violence to either, that which has the weaker hold on the 
convictions will almost unconsciously be sacrificed, unless a true 
reconciliation be found. The further remark, that "we ought 
to harbour no hankering after so-called reconciliations, or allow 
them to warp our rendering of the record," is thus wholly 
deceptive and ambiguous, when we seek to apply it in practice, 
No one, with his strongest efforts, can believe apparent con- 
tradictions. If two sets of truths seem to contradict each other, 
both must be more correctly defined, so that the contradiction 
may disappear, or else one of them will be tacitly renounced 
and explained away to secure our faith in the other. The 
sequel of the Essay now examined, to plain readers of the Bible, 
will seem a singular contradiction to the maxim with which it 
opens. Its main doctrine is that Gen. i. is no history at all, but 
a poem or psalm of creation. After denouncing " quibbles and 
makeshifts," the writer continues — " The chief wonder is how it 
ever was possible to exact from the oldest and sublimest poem 
in the world the attributes of narrative prose." Most readers 
will wonder, in their turn, how it was possible for any essayist 
to mistake the least plausible and most desperate of makeshifts 
for a self-evident truth, in defiance of the universal conviction of 
Jews and Christians in all ages, the style of the narrative itself, 



488 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

and its place in the very opening of a long series of unadorned 
and simple narratives, wholly distinct in their structure from 
the psalms and prophecies, which appear far later in the harmo- 
nious and regular development of Divine revelation. 

Dr. M'Caul, in the Aids to Faith, has some forcible remarks 
on this hypothesis, as simple in style as they are powerful in 
argument, with every word of which I fully agree. 

" The new theology asserts that the Mosaic cosmogony is con- 
tradicted by the progress of science, and therefore, that Moses 
could not have been inspired. This is a straightforward objec- 
tion, deserves a fair consideration, and ought not to be met with 
what objectors can only regard as evasions. Such are the asser- 
tions that Gen. i. is poetry, or a series of seven prophetic 
visions, or the mere clothing of a theological truth. To urge 
such suppositions is not to defend the ark of God, but to abandon 
it to the enemy. If Gen. i. be poetry, or vision, or parable, it is 
not historic truth, which is just what objectors assert. There 
are in this chapter none of the peculiarities of Hebrew poetry. 
The style is full of dignity, but it is that of prose narrative. 
There is no mention of prophetic vision, no prophetic formula 
employed. The prophet or historian is kept completely out of 
sight, and the narrative begins at once without any preface. 
' In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' It 
then goes to the account of Paradise, and the birth of Cain and 
Abel, without any break or note of transition from vision to 
history. The Book of Genesis is history. It is the historical 
introduction to the four following books of the Pentateuch, or 
rather, to all following revelation ; and the first chapter, as the 
inseparable beginning of the whole, must be historical also. 
When the Lord recapitulates its contents in the Fourth Com- 
mandment, he stamps.it as real history. To suppose a moral, 
or even a ceremonial command, based on a poetic picture, a 
vision, a mere ideal narrative, would be absurd. The Lord also 
treats these chapters as authoritative history, when he makes 
Gen. i. 27, and ii. 23, 24, the foundation of his doctrine concern- 
ing marriage and divorce. As history, therefore, they must be 
received, whatever difficulties that reception may involve," 
p. 198. 

It is not easy to add to the force of this simple and lucid 
statement. And I must profess my mingled regret and surprise 



NOTES. 489 

that a treatise should be published by way of reply to the Fifth 
Essay, which, under high-flown phrases, conceals an entire 
abandonment of the cause it seems to defend ; and rests its 
maintenance of the inspiration of Genesis on an hypothesis, 
which does violence to common sense, the first and simplest 
conclusion of every honest reader of the sacred narrative, and 
the consenting judgment of Jews, Christians, and unbelievers in 
every age. 

The one reason assigned for reversing the necessary inference 
from style, position, and connection, and converting the first 
chapter in a long series of sacred histories into a psalm or poem, 
complete in structure, but devoid of reality, is drawn from the 
parallelism of the passage, and is expressed as follows : — 

" He who perceives this (the parallelism) has the true key to 
the concord which he will search for elsewhere and otherwise in 
vain. Respect the parallelism, cease to ignore the structure, 
allow for the mystic significance of the number seven, and all 
perplexities vanish. The two groups of days are each perfectly 
regular, when group in its integrity, is collated with group : 
neither triad, if it is to exhibit its own aspect of creation, can 
afford to part with, or dislocate, any of its members ; and the 
second triad, as a whole, is rightly and of necessity second, as 
the first is rightly and of necessity first. And yet it is self-evident 
that if, for any reason we insert or break up the groups, the true 
continuation of the day is not day 2 but day 4, of day 2 not day 
3 but day 5, of day 3 not day 4, but day 6. And thus the 
days are transfigured from registers of time into definitives of 
strophes or stanzas, lamps and landmarks of a creative sequence, 
a mystic drapery, a parabolic setting, shadowing by the sacred 
cycle of seven, the truths of an ordered progress, a foreknown 
finality, an achieved perfection, and a Divine repose." 

The first chapter of Genesis, in the view alike of the Jewish 
synagogue and the whole Christian church, is a true and 
inspired history of real facts in the creation of the world. 
According to the Fifth Essay, it is the imperfect guess-work of 
some Hebrew Descartes or Newton, an ingenious conjecture 
destitute of all historical truth. According to the author of the 
Eeply, it is the work of some Hebrew Spenser or Dryden, a 
lyrical poem, elegant in its structure, and equally devoid of 
historical reality. These appear to me to be two varied forms 



490 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

of the same unbelief, and the difference of very slight practical 
importance. Whether it was an ingenious guesser in science, or 
a skilful poet who had framed two triplets of days to form 
strophes and antistrophes out of his own fancy, if either of them 
passed off the result on the whole church as a history divinely 
revealed, the fraud in substance is just the same, and one 
variety has scarcely any claim to a preference over the other. 

The reason assigned for adopting this unreal view of the 
narrative is of the most shadowy kind. The Greek name of 
the universe is #007*09, which denotes orderly arrangement. 
By what right, then, can we assume that the actual order of the 
Divine architect, in the work of creation, should be less regular 
and harmonious than the fancies of any lyrical poet, or the work 
of God himself less orderly than the literary compositions of 
man? "Why should the work of the six days be less real, 
because the first and fourth days refer to light and its appointed 
vehicles, the second and fifth to the firmament and seas and 
their inhabitants, the third and sixth to the dry land, and the 
plants and animals by which it is filled and peopled ? 

Surely nothing can be less reasonable than to pronounce a 
cosmogony unreal, because a Divine #007*09, or order, is appa- 
rent no less in the revealed steps of the process than in the 
finished work. A reverent spirit will be disposed to reverse the 
argument, and gather a proof that the record is historically 
true, because it unfolds a Divine symmetry in the steps of crea- 
tion, such as man instinctively copies in the mimic creations 
of his fancy from which poetiy derives its name. A Divine 
record of creation, we may reasonably assume, will resemble 
human poems in their noblest elements of symmetry and order, 
and form a contrast by its historical truth and reality alone. 

II. The theory, which sees in the record of Gen. i. a mere 
poem or psalm, requires it to be separated, as a distinct whole, 
from the chapters that follow. Accordingly, the essay in the 
Beplies, continues in these words : — 

" We find at Gen. ii. 4, the clearest marks of a break and a 
transition, one strain of composition closed, a fresh strain begun. 
Verse 4 is a bridge or stepping-stone from one monograph to 
another. How this is to be critically accounted for is no part of 
the present inquiry. ... Be the explanation what it may, the 
record of the creative week is one record, what follows is 



NOTES. 491 

another. Sceptical criticism may deny that the two monograms 
are harmonious ; this must not provoke refusal to recognise 
them as distinct." 

The remarks of Dr. M'Caul, on this point as on the last, are 
diametrically opposite. 

"Independently of all philological criticisms, the unity of 
the first two chapters may be proved by comparing one with the 
other. They do not contain two distinct accounts of the crea- 
tion. The second does not relate the creation of heaven or 
earth, or light, or firmament, sun, moon or stars, sea or dry 
land, fish or creeping things. Far from being a cosmogony, it 
is not even a geogony. The words of ii. 4, cannot therefore be 
the title or summary of what follows, but are an exact recapitu- 
lation of what is narrated in the first chapter. They mention, 
first, the creation of "the heavens and the earth ;" second, the 
making of " the earth and heavens," in the very order in which 
the process is related in that chapter, but of which not one word 
is said in what follows. The second chapter is obviously not an 
account of creation, but of particulars of the formation of man 
and his early history. It is therefore an integral part of a rela- 
tion contained in the three first chapters, connected with the 
first by ii. 4, and preparing for the account of the Fall, by 
telling us beforehand of Paradise, the tree of knowledge, the 
prohibition to eat of it, and the formation of woman. There are 
differences to be explained by the different objects. In the first 
it was to give an outline of the history of the universe ; in the 
second, to narrate the origin and primitive history of man, so far 
as necessary to prepare for the history of the Fall. In the former, 
then, all the steps of creation are treated in chronological order. 
In the latter, only so much is alluded to as is necessary for the 
author's purpose, and in the order which that purpose required." 

These remarks I believe to be strictly true. There is distinct- 
ness between the two portions, just as there is between the third 
and fourth, or the fourth and fifth chapters, or any two distinct 
portions of one continuous history. But there is no reason 
whatever for styling the first chapter a monograph, or supposing 
that it had ever an independent existence. It is simply the 
first portion of the sacred history, linked inseparably by Gen. ii. 
4, with the second portion that follows ; as this is linked in its 
turn, with the third chapter by the account of the garden of 



492 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

Eden and the tree of knowledge, and the sinless innocence of 
Adam and Eve. The same historical character is plain from 
first to last, and the historical unity is no less apparent. 

III. Another question, on which the Essay in the Keplies 
speaks with great confidence, is the inclusion of the first verse 
within the six days. 

" The Mosaic heptameron is a whole in itself ; it is further 
manifest that it shuts in a whole. Whatever the work-peopled 
week be, it is meant absolutely to include and enclasp the 
creation of the All at the will of the One. Ere this week 
opened, in the conception of the sacred penman, God had not 
begun to create ; ere this week closed, he had done with 
creating. Of work prior to the first day the sacred writer 
knows no more than of work posterior to the sixth. With the 
first day the series of creative fiats begins ; by the sixth day 
they have ceased. For in, that is ' within six days the Lord 
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day,' rested from all his work. Accordingly, 
the record articulates into seven strophes or segments, of which 
Ave are contained, and two are terminal or containing. The 
five are defined in the clearest manner by their opening and 
close. God said, Evening and morning were the second, third, 
fourth, fifth, sixth day. The initial and final sections are neces- 
sarily modified, one as supplying an exordium, the other a 
peroration or climax. Still the only question that can naturally 
arise is whether the exordium belongs strictly to the first day, 
or to the six days in common. Within those six days, on either 
view, all is made that has been made. During six days God 
works. On the seventh day that rest is resumed which before 
the first day had not been broken." 

Here, again, the view of Dr. M'Caul is diametrically opposite, 
being the same which I have also briefly maintained in the text. 
But, instead of resting it on a mere ipse dixit, like the other 
essayist, he supports it by a large induction of authorities from 
the Chaldee, Syriac, and Septuagint, down to modern times ; 
all conspiring to show that befashith means " in former dura- 
tion," or " of old." " How long ago is not said. The Hebrew 
word is indefinite, and can include millions of years just as 
easily as thousands. The words of Moses, rightly understood, 
leave the ' when ' of creation undefined." 



NOTES. * 493 

' Again, lie reasons thus in ver. 1 : " Some take it for a title or 
summary of the contents of the chapter. But this view is 
forbidden by the conjunction with which the second verse 
begins. This makes that verse a continuation of the narrative 
begun in the first. The first, therefore, is not a summary, but 
a part of the history of creation. Others suppose that ver. 1 
describes the creation of materials out of which heaven and 
earth were afterwards formed. But this is to put into the 
verses what is not there. Heaven and earth never mean 
materials ; and if they did, that meaning would not agree with 
the contents." 

The conclusion drawn from seven pages of exact and careful 
criticism is that " the heavens " of the first verse must refer to 
the higher heavens, in contrast to the lower heavens, or fir- 
mament, the formation of which is recounted on the second day. 
This is precisely the view I have advocated more briefly in the 
text. It stands plainly in direct contradiction to the assertion 
of the other essayist, that ver. 1 is either a summary of the six 
days' work, or strictly included within the first day. These are 
precisely the alternatives, which Dr. M'Caul examines in suc- 
cession, and shews that by the laws of exact criticism each of 
them is untenable. 

The question here at issue is one of high importance, and 
may be stated thus: Are the six days a poetical matrix or 
mould, having no historical reality, into which the whole has 
been cast, to secure an aesthetic symmetry of composition ; or are 
they a fact, later than the creation of the heavens and earth in 
the first verse — a fact which reveals itself in the regular course 
of a real narrative ? On the former view they ought to have 
been named at the very outset. " In six days God created the 
heavens and the earth." There might then be some plausible 
excuse for transfiguring them " from registers of time into de- 
finitives of strophes or stanzas, a mystic drapery, a parabolic 
setting." But, as the record now stands, the first day is the 
actual corollary and consequence of that fiat which said, " Let 
there be light, and there was light." Far from defining the 
creation of the earth and the deep, and still less of the higher 
heavens, it is an historical result, when the darkness on the 
face of the deep is dispelled. In the view of the sacred writer 
the word "day," as well as the thing, is a product and conse- 



494 THE BIBLE ^ND MODERN THOUGHT. 

quence of the especial stage in the Divine work, when the 
heavens, the earth, and the deep of waters, were already in 
being. 

The same conclusion may be reached in another way ; for 
the heavens of the first verse, by the essayist's admission, 
include the things invisible, or the third heavens of glory. But 
if the first day includes this opening verse, then the darkness of 
that day, its first portion, must also include the upper heavens 
as well as the earth. Such a view is preposterous and un- 
natural. The light of ver. 3 stands in plain contrast to the 
darkness on the face of the deep. The deep is a synonym 
for the earth, while waste and void, and covered with water 
or watery vapours. And hence the succession of darkness 
and light, which constitutes the first day, can have no refer- 
ence to the heavens of the first verse. It implies the pre- 
existence of an earth and a deep, and denotes the first of 
successive periods, in which their waste and void condition 
was changed into the beauty of a well-ordered and finished 
world. 

It is hard to understand what construction of the sacred nar- 
rative the essayist wishes his readers actually to receive. He 
insists strongly that the whole work of creation is strictly 
included within the six creative days. " On so transparent a 
gloss," he says, "as the vision scheme, words would only be 
wasted. Nor will many believe that creation, as an idea, is the 
thing intended, so long as the plainest of plain language assures 
them that the thing intended is creation as a fact." On the 
other hand, "on the hypothesis that we have to do with an 
ordinary prose narrative, there emerges the great difficulty of 
the days," and " with this no ingenuity has as yet grappled suc- 
cessfully." " Enough, then, whether of quibbles or makeshifts." 
The true key to the concord, which will be sought elsewhere in 
vain, is to be found in the view that the six days within which 
the history of creation as a fact is contained, no part being 
created before the first day, and none after the sixth, are " a 
mystic drapery, a parabolic setting," no registers of time, but 
"definitives of strophes, and lamps and landmarks of a 
creative sequence." So far as any meaning can be attached to 
these contradictory statements, the Mosaic narrative is to be 
viewed as an example of the widest poetical license. Its prin- 



NOTES. 495 

ciples are all true, but its apparent details are all deceptive and 
false. The real order of cosmic change, through long millions 
of years, is replaced by two triplets of imaginary works in six 
imaginary days, perfect in their poetical symmetry, but, in 
point of fact, wholly untrue. I agree fully with Dr. M'Caul, 
that " this is not to defend the ark of God, but to abandon.it to 
the enemy." 

So far my own dissent from the author of The Creative 
Week, and my agreement with the learned writer of the 
Mosaic Eecord, is complete and entire. I must now proceed 
to other points where the view of Dr. M'Caul diverges more or 
less from my own. We agree fully in receiving the Mosaic 
record as true history, in the view of the first verse, as prior to 
the work of the six days, and its heavens distinct from the 
firmamental heaven of the second day, in the historical sequence 
of the days themselves, and the close connection between the 
record of the six days' work, and the following chapters of the 
history. Dr. M'Caul rejects also the idea of Hugh Miller, who 
identifies three of the days with three main geological periods. 
But he holds them to be indefinite periods of time, supposes the 
creation of light to refer to a distant period, before the sun had 
received its luminous character, and the work of the fourth day 
to refer to the constitution of our solar system in its actual form. 
Here several points of great importance call for renewed and 
careful examination. 

IV. The literal meaning of the six days is rejected by both 
essayists ; by Mr. Korison in these words : " With this great 
difficulty no ingenuity has as yet grappled successfully. The 
choice lies between the Chalmerian interpolation of geological 
ages before the first day begins, and the Cuvierian expansion of 
the six days into geological periods. For these solutions 
respectively Dr. Buckland and Hugh Miller have done their 
best, and more skilful and accomplished advocacy could not be 
found. But the arguments which compelled Hugh Miller to 
abandon the older method have not been answered. Nor is his 
own scheme free from the gravest difficulty. Who can bring 
himself to believe that, when the sacred writer speaks of trees 
laden for human use with seed-enclosing fruit, he could have 
had in his mind the gymnogenous flora of the coal measures ? 
Certain writers evade embarrassment by declining to elect among 



496 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

competing reconciliations : it is enough that some of them may 
be sound, though it is inconvenient to become responsible for 
any, or the record was not intended to do what it expressly 
undertakes and professes to do, or the time is not come for a 
comparison between Scripture and geology, since there are 
points on which geologists are not agreed among themselves. 
All this is but a manifestation of anxiety to snatch a cherished 
dogma from a dreaded foe. Were the panic well founded, the 
belief indebted to such expedients would be only screened, not 
saved." 

These last remarks are just in themselves, though they read | 
strangely in connection with the rest of the essay, which recon- , 
ciles Genesis with geology, by the double assertion that it I 
plainly describes creation as a fact, not an idea, and that the | 
account is a poetical idea, not historical truth. But the only 
reason advanced against the literal view is an appeal, like that ! 
of the fifth essay, to Hugh Miller's authority. To this I reply, j 
as in the text, and more fully in the Christian Observer, . 
June, 1858, that the large induction of M. D'Orbigny, given in I 
summary by Dr. Lardner in the Museum of Science, stands in i 
diametrical opposition to Hugh Miller's assertions. His argu- 
ment, in the Testimony of the Eocks, for the continuity of 
the tertiary and human periods, is drawn from eight animals, 
and two or three species of shells alone. M. D'Orbigny, on j 
the contrary, affirms that the tertiary period may be parted 
into five stages, in which, out of 6,042 species, only 91 were I 
common to two or more successive stages, and all were distinct 
from the now existing species of the human period. On this ' 
subject I have written before. (Christian Observer, Jan. 1858, 
p. 31.) 

" In point oiplan, of which the genera are the test, all the ages I 
of geology dovetail remarkably from first to last. But in point 
of physical continuity, or the absence of new acts of creation, the 
question in debate, of which the species are the true criterion, 
the latest inductions of science prove that the reverse is true. 
They bring to light thirty distinct and successive worlds of 
animal life, of which the human world is the last. In plan all 
are partly continuous, partly varied ; but while in most of them 
the continuity is the more conspicuous feature, the change of 
plan is more apparent in three or four transitions, and most 



NOTES. 497 

marked, beyond comparison, in the transition to our present 
world. But in species they are each and all of them either per- 
fectly, or almost perfectly, discontinuous. Between the third 
and fourth, the fourth and fifth ages, this discontinuity, accord- 
ing to D'Orbigny, is almost, between the first and second, the 
second and third, the fifth and our own, it is quite complete. 
A new zoological creation, contemporary with man, far from 
being a geological impossibility, thus appears to be the natural 
conclusion from the most exact and comprehensive inductions of 
geological science." 

Dr. M'Caul, again, offers the following reasons against the 
literal sense of the six days : — 

" It is an old and true observation that in the Bible the word 
I day ' often signifies undefined periods of time, as ' the day of 
the Lord,' ' the day of vengeance.' In this narrative (ii. 4), the 
word takes in the whole time of the creative work. The first 
three days were certainly not measured by the interval between 
sunset and sunset, for as yet the sun was not perfect and had no 
light. ... If the length of the days is to be measured by that 
of the seventh, the day of God's rest, those days must be 
indefinite periods, for that day of rest still continues. And this 
is plainly expressed and argued in the epistle to the Hebrews. 
According to this declaration that God's rest or sabbath still 
continues, the seventh day of creation is an indefinite period 
and the other days may be also. . . . The Mosaic language 
implies that the six days of which he speaks are six periods of 
time." 

The first of these arguments, from the indefinite meaning of 
the word " day " in other places, is answered by a simple 
remark. The cases are not parallel, because here only it is 
joined with ordinal numbers. " These never occur, either in 
the Bible or elsewhere, when words of time are used for 
indefinite periods. The reason is plain: two, three, four in- 
definite periods make only one indefinite period. In this vague 
sense numeration is impossible, and regular arithmetic can have 
no place. The simple fact that the days are numbered from the 
first to the seventh is thus a clear proof, either that they are 
literal days, or definite periods of known length, which bear 
some close analogy to literal days. But there is no plea, in 
this passage, for the latter meaning ; and hence the fact that a 

2 K 



498 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth day are distinctly 
named, is a clear proof that they are literal days, and not 
indefinite and immense^ periods of time." (Christian Observer, 
July, 1858, p. 553.) 

" The effect of this construction is really to blot out these six 
clauses altogether. For it is self-evident that each event 
recorded must occupy some space of time or other ; and this is 
all that these words teach on the hypothesis of day periods. 
After suggesting a false meaning to nearly every reader for four 
thousand years, this new interpretation dissipates them into thin 
air, and dispenses with them altogether." 

The second reason offered for denying the days to be literal is 
drawn from the mention of the sun only on the fourth day. The 
first three days, it is inferred, could not be measured from sunset 
to sunset, and at least in their case the literal meaning must be 
abandoned. 

This objection falls to the ground at once, if the view in the 
text be accepted, that the whole record is optical in its character ; 
or, in other words, that the sun, moon, and stars of the fourth 
day refer to the discs or points of light, as seen revolving daily 
in the blue firmament, and not to solid globes, contemplated by 
science in the depths of space. This is the only view consistent 
with the uniform and unvaried phraseology of Scripture (comp. 
Gen. xv. 12 ; xix. 23 ; xxxvii. 9 ; Deut, iv. 47 ; xi. 30 ; Josh. 
x. 12 ; Psa. xix.), and when once accepted, the whole difficulty 
disappears. 

The third reason for deserting the literal sense of the days 
consists in the assertion that the seventh day of the Divine rest 
continues to tins hour ; and this is alleged to be the direct state- 
ment of the epistle to the Hebrews, where believers are said to 
be entering into the rest of God. But this argument, I believe, 
is based on a total misconception. We are told that on the 
seventh day God rested from his work, and not that the time of 
God's continued resting formed a seventh day. The two state- 
ments are entirely different in their natural meaning. If num- 
bered fifth and sixth days had gone before, marked and defined 
by an evening and a morning, or a successive period of darkness 
and light — and such literal days there must have been when 
Adam and Eve were now made — then a seventh of the same 
kind must clearly have followed. When we are told that God 



NOTES. 499 

rested on this seventh day, the cessation or transition from work 
to rest is clearly intended, and not the mere continuance of the 
resting time, when once begun. On that day God ceased from 
his work ; on later days he could not cease from his creative 
work, because he had ceased from it before. There is no 
ground, then, in the long continuance of the Divine rest, for 
setting aside the literal meaning of the seventh day. On the 
contrary, the fourth commandment excludes and forbids such a 
change of the meaning ; for the appeal is to a Divine precedent, 
complete and finished, and a seventh day of unknown thousands 
of years, still in progress, would rob the words of all coherence 
and natural significance. It must surely be unnatural, in the 
highest degree, to interpret the six days to mean all the vast 
periods of geology, and the seventh day the whole eternity from 
Adam onward for ever, and then to extract a reason for man's 
observance of one day in seven from this unequal division of 
past ages and a future eternity. 

V. The Darkness on the Deep. 

The view of verse 2 in the text is that " after the tertiary period 
our planet was wrapped in a sea of vapour, and buried long in 
midnight and impenetrable gloom. This chaos, optically and phy- 
sically complete, is the starting-point of the inspired description." 
The view of Dr. M'Caul is the same, except that he refers it to 
some more ancient era of similar confusion and disturbance. 

" The next statement made by Moses is so far from being in 
opposition to the discoveries of science, that it is an extraordinary 
anticipation of what geology teaches. It presents to us the 
earth, before its habitation by man, covered with water, and 
utterly devoid of inhabitants or life. The earth was desola- 
tion and emptiness, and darkness upon the face of the raging 
deep, and the Spirit of God brooding upon the face of the 
waters." So Pfaff says : " We soon perceive that by far the 
greatest part of our earth was under water, but that to water it 
owes its origin, and that under water the entire gradual forma- 
tion of these mighty masses took place. . . . How this state of 
igneous fluidity or aqueous plasticity arose — whether God created 
the earth desolate and empty, or it became so in consequence of 
some mighty catastrophe, Moses has not expressly declared, 
though the latter appears to some to be implied in his words." 

The general agreement of this verse with the revelations of 

2 k 2 



500 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

geology, in its statements of the former condition of our earth, 
is very plain. The only doubt that can well be raised is 
whether the words consist with the view of literal days ; that is, 
whether the description can be applicable so late in the 
geological series as the close of the tertiary, and the commence- 
ment of the human period. But the fact that the elevation of 
the highest mountain-chains, the great Alps and Chilian Andes, 
characterizes this transition in the records of geology, removes 
all difficulty. A physical change so immense could not fail to 
bring the whole surface of our globe into the state implied in 
the sacred text, all life destroyed, all light blotted out, and one 
immense ocean of watery vapour wrapping its whole surface in 
dense and impenetrable gloom. 
VI. The Creation of Light. 

The objection to the Mosaic narrative of the first day has been 
traced historically by Dr. M'Caul in these words : " Celsus found 
it strange that Moses should speak of days before the existence 
of the sun. How did God create the light before the sun ? asked 
Voltaire. Modern astronomy, says D. F. Strauss, found it con- 
trary to order that the earth should not only have been created 
before the sun, but should also, besides day and night, have dis- 
tinction of the elements and vegetation before the sun. " Light 
and the measurement of time are represented as existing before 
the manifestation of the sun ; and this idea, though repugnant to 
our modern knowledge, has not in former times appeared absurd," 
is the objection of Essays and Reviews ; and, as is evident, is not 
the result of modern science, having been broached already by 
Celsus. 

The author of the Creative Week offers no help to the solution 
of this difficulty : on the contrary, he seems to associate him- 
self, on this point, with all the objections from Celsus onward, 
in a manner hard to reconcile with the purpose of his essay. 

The remarks of Dr. M'Caul are clear and forcible. Modern 
science, he observes, " teaches nothing with regard to the relative 
ages of the earth and the sun. But the nebular theory, received 
as highly probable by many scientific men, supposes the planets 
to have been cast off in rings from the central body while in 
process of condensation. Hence two alternatives. The planets 
are not self-luminous ; if the rings were opaque when separated, 
the central mass would be dark also, and the sun did not become 



NOTES. 501 

luminous till some time after the planets had been formed. If 
the rings were luminous, then each planet had at first a light of 
its own, independent of the sun. Again, Moses calls the sun 
Maor — a place or instrument of light, which is just what science 
pronounces it to be. Scripture does not say that God created 
the light, or made it, but said, Let it be, and it was. If, then, 
light be not a separate body, but only vibrations of ether, the 
sacred writer could not have expressed its appearance in words 
more beautiful or more agreeable to truth. . . . The theory of 
Laplace may or may not be true, but it is an offspring of modern 
science, and it implies, like the Mosaic account, the pre-existence 
of the earth before the sun became the luminary of the system." 

These remarks are just and true in themselves. If the words 
of verse 3 include the nebular stage of the universe, the mention 
of evening and morning will be strange, but the mere ante- 
cedence of light to sunlight can be no difficulty. It would 
rather be a coincidence between the sacred text and the imper- 
fect guess of science. Modern philosophy, far from identifying 
light with the sun's mass, shows them to be wholly distinct, and 
the sun's atmosphere alone to be luminous. The true enigma, 
on the nebular hypothesis, which science does not even pretend 
to explain, is how the sun has gained its monopoly of luminous 
power, while the planets, once parts of the same mass, have lost 
their own share. 

On the literal view of the six days, however, the explanation 
is simpler, and less dependent on doubtful questions of science. 
" After an unknown period of total darkness light broke out 
suddenly at God's command over the whole surface of the 
globe. It is self-evident that such a fact is all that Moses and 
his contemporaries, and all readers of the Pentateuch down to our 
own days, could naturally understand by the words. They could 
never suppose it to mean the creation of a luminiferous ether, 
filling infinite space, or the commencement of unknown undula- 
tions, regulated by unknown mechanical laws. The light has 
reference to the previous darkness ; the darkness was upon the 
face of the deep ; the deep is no synonym for infinite space, but 
for the earth itself, while its surface was covered with water, 
before the dry land appeared." 

The Mosaic record, then, assumes in its first verse the 
creation of the higher heavens and of the earth, and this, too, 



502 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

"in the beginning," or the remote antiquity of time. It 
assumes, in the second verse, that the earth existed already, in a 
state of confusion and darkness. It recounts the steps by which 
this earth, standing out of the waters and in the waters, just as 
geology paints it after an era of convulsion, was Divinely pre- 
pared to be the abode of man, a fit theatre for all the later 
wonders of God's providence. Hence the natural and almost 
necessary starting-point must be the last, not the earliest, of 
those destructive revolutions of our planet which science has 
disclosed to its students in modern times. 

The spirit of unbelief, which says " all things continue as 
they were from the beginning," may strive hard to force the 
facts of geology into agreement with some theory of uniform 
development, undisturbed either by grand catastrophes of 
nature, or the wonder-working and life-giving power of God. 
But reason and common sense protest against the vain effort. 
A convulsion of our planet, which could raise the Alps and 
Andes to their enormous height, must have far exceeded all 
historical examples of volcanic agency, have destroyed animal 
and vegetable life, if it existed before, and wrapped our globe in 
one immense sea of aqueous vapour, confusion, and darkness. 
To begin with histories of buried creations, that would remain 
hidden from human knowledge, and entombed in the depths of 
earth for thousands of years, would have been worse than useless 
for all the great objects of a Divine message to a world of 
sinners. Then- premature disclosure in the first page of the 
Bible would be as unnatural as an account of Jupiter or Sirius, 
or the possible inhabitants that may people the stars of the 
Milky Way. But if this last convulsion were the natural start- 
ing-point of the record, then the breaking forth of light, when 
the vast sea of vapour began to return to its proper home, would 
be the first daybreak of a new and coming world. Such, ac- 
cordingly, I believe to be the natural and unforced meaning of 
i. 3, when the words are taken in their context, and compared 
with the uniform style and language of the sacred history. 

VII. The First Day. 

In the Creative Week, where the days are "transfigured 
into definitions of strophes or stanzas," no light, of course, can 
be thrown on the phrase, " and the evening and the morning 
were the first day," etc. Dr. M'Caul adopts a novel view, shared 



NOTES. 503 

also by Kurtz, Delitzch, Hoffman, and Nagelsbach. He takes 
the evening and morning in their strictest sense, as the 
moments of transition from light to darkness and darkness to 
light; so that each workday, beginning with the daybreak, 
reached to the following dawn. He reasons thus : — 

" The Hebrew and ancient versions have — And evening hap- 
pened, and morning happened, one day. Now if the first day 
began with the original darkness, then it consists of that dark- 
ness, the light, and the evening that followed, ending with the 
morning, and would have an evening at the beginning and at 
the end. The mention of morning ought to have guarded 
against this mistake ; evening and morning do not together 
make a day, but only part of a day ; the whole day is not com- 
plete till the following evening. But that Moses does not reckon 
from evening to evening is proved by the account of the first day. 
The evocation of light is the prominent object, and afterwards it 
is said : And there was evening and there was morning, one day. 
If the day began with the evening, light was created before that 
first day began, and there would be no account at all of what was 
done the first day ; it must, therefore, be reckoned as beginning 
at the appearance of light and continuing through the evening 
to the dawn. With that dawn the second day begins. This 
mode of reckoning, unique in the Bible, and peculiar to this 
first of Genesis, suggests that the days are peculiar also." 

This innovation, in spite of the learning of its four or five 
advocates, I believe to be wholly groundless, as it certainly con- 
tradicts the judgment of Jewish and Christian scholars from the 
earliest times. 

Six proper days, or seasons of light and work, plainly appear 
in the record, preceded, separated, and followed by nights, or 
seasons of darkness. The question is, what is the meaning of 
each chronological day ? Is it the time of light, with the 
previous or with the succeeding time of darkness ? The former 
is the usual and almost universal view, confirmed by the fact 
that from sunset to sunset was the Jewish day. Dr. M'Caul and 
the four German critics hold that the days before us are from 
daybreak to daybreak, with an entire omission of the previous 
or original darkness. Their argument rests on the strict mean- 
ing of evening and morning, as seasons of transition from night 
to clay. In this strict sense, the first evening must have followed 



501 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

the first time of light, and the morning after that evening 
would be the dawn of the second day. 

The reasons against this view are, in my opinion, quite 
decisive. First, the words imply that each evening and morn- 
ing, taken together, are a synonym for the answering day. But 
this could not be if they are taken for small parts of each 
diurnal period, when light turns to darkness, or darkness to 
light again. Next, it is very unnatural to associate the night 
with the previous daytime by naming a point of time which 
begins the night, and another which begins the next day, 
inferring the night from the mention of its two limits, and then 
inferring its union with the previous daytime, by adding " one 
day." There is a double violence in such a construction. An 
evening and a morning, in the narrow sense of the words, are not 
a synonym for the night they inclose. Still less can they be a 
synonym for that half day, and the half which has gone before it. 
Further, on this view the original sabbath, the Divine pattern, 
must have begun with the daybreak and have lasted till the 
daybreak following. In this case it is very strange that the 
Jewish church should have exactly reversed the true type for 
fifteen hundred years. Again, whether the days are literal or 
figurative, it is plain that with the end of daylight on the sixth 
day the work was completed, and the Divine rest must have 
begun. This agrees fully with the common view of the days, 
but is wholly opposed to the new interpretation. 

Let us return to the text, and see whether it does not fix 
clearly its own meaning. The word " day " has a double sense : 
it means either the season of daylight, in which it is the contrast 
of night, or else a complete diurnal period. When used chro- 
nologically it must take the latter sense : here, however, in 
the account of the first day it has already been appropriated in 
its former meaning : " And God called the light Day, and the 
darkness he called Night." It would plainly be harsh and 
unnatural to use the same word ambiguously in the same clause, 
and to say, " And there was a night and a day, one day." 
Hence, by a natural synecdoche, evening and morning are 
named for the two half days of darkness and light, which make 
up the whole day or diurnal period. And there was an evening 
( = a night season), and there was a morning ( = a natural daytime), 
= one chronological day. The primitive sense of the Hebrew 



NOTES. 505 

word ereb seems to be mixture or confusion, from the effect of 
darkness in confounding all objects together. In like manner, 
the word morning denotes the time of searching out or dis- 
crimination ; and both may therefore be fitly applied to the 
whole successive times of light and darkness. The distinct 
mention, then, of the evening and the morning, six times 
repeated, and with ordinal numbers, is a powerful argument for 
the meaning of natural or literal days. 

VIII. The Second Day, and the Expanse or Firmament. 

On the subject of the Expanse, for the first time, the author 
of the Creative Week and Dr. M'Caul are in full agreement. 
Both regard the assertion in the Fifth Essay, that the Hebrew 
means a solid vault, as wholly .and palpably untrue. Dr. 
M'Caul bestows on the question a rich profusion of authorities 
and critical research. He explains, further, that the Septuagint 
version, arepico/xa, had really the same meaning. It did not 
denote " something itself solid, but something that strengthened 
or made firm the heavenly bodies," the sense of the same word 
in Ezek. iv. 16, Est. ix. 29, Psa. xviii. 3, in the Greek version. 
The plain, clear sense of the following remarks are a refreshing- 
contrast to some learned follies. 

" The common people are not so dull as Gesenius and some 
others think. Who ever met a rustic, accustomed to look at 
the heavens, who thought it was a solid vault, and the stars 
fixed in like nails ? The common people are not so silly — they 
judge by what they see : they see the lark and the eagle soaring 
aloft in the air, and they think that all beyond is just alike ; 
they never dream of a solid obstacle in the way. . . . The most 
uneducated know well the connection between clouds and rain, 
and in this the Hebrews were not behind other people : indeed, 
this connection furnished materials for the proverb — ' Clouds and 
wind, and no rain.' Such is the man whose promise of a gift is 
a lie." 

On the meaning of the "waters above the firmament" the 
two essayists diverge once more. " Satire," says Mr. Eorison, 
" will not spare writers who trench, however un wittingly, on the 
ludicrous, when, under the abused aegis of the Plurality of 
Worlds, they identify the planet Jupiter with the waters that 
are above the firmament." Dr. M'Caul, on the contrary, treats 
the idea with respect and almost with approbation. " But 



506 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

though there be no ocean, may there not still be waters above 
the firmament ? Such was the opinion of the learned F. von 
Meyer, adopted by Kurtz, and lately advocated by Delitzch. 
That such a supposition is not unscientific appears from Dr. 
Whewell's Theory of the Solar System. Perhaps when 
science knows a little more about the ethereal medium in which 
the heavenly bodies move, it may also learn something more 
about this ' water and aqueous vapour,' and be better able to 
understand the Mosaic statement about the waters above the 
firmament." 

There is certainly nothing improbable in the supposition that 
the large superior planets, which science has both weighed and 
measured, and thus proved to be as light or lighter than water, 
may be mainly composed of that element. There may even be 
more than a fanciful analogy in the suggestion made in the 
Plurality of Worlds, that the vapour of the system, repelled 
from the great source and centre of heat, has been " neatly 
wound into balls " and " packed into rotating masses, such as 
Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune." But the hypothesis 
cannot, without great violence, be applied to the explanation of 
"the waters above the firmament." No stranger or more 
unnatural view could be taken of the formation of the solar 
system, on the side of mere science, than to imagine our earth 
formed in the first place with its atmosphere ; secondly, the 
large exterior planets ; and thirdly, and later than both, the sun, 
the great central body, and the moon, our own satellite. The 
radical fault of Dr. M'Caul's view, in deserting the optical view 
of the sacred narrative, and replacing it by fragments of the 
nebular hypothesis, comes out here into full relief. The fine 
passage of Mr. Euskin, quoted in the Creative Week, p. 290 
(Modern Painting, iv. 83 — 89), comes much nearer to the 
truth. The eye and soul of the artist brings him into close 
sympathy with the simple and sublime description in the sacred 
text. But the view I have taken in the text is, in my opinion, 
more exact and complete. The clouds are styled, in Scripture 
metaphor, " the bottles of heaven." They are the instruments 
by which, when the windows of heaven are opened, some of the 
" waters above the firmament " are transferred from their celes- 
tial reservoir, and descend in showers, to rejoin, by the springs 
and rivers, the gathering of the waters in seas below the firma- 



NOTES. 507 

ment. Thus the " waters above the firmament " are not strictly 
the clouds themselves, but that invisible vapour/ever replenished 
in the grand laboratory of nature, which supplies the clouds 
with their " treasures of snow and of hail," the dew and rain 
which descend continually upon the earth. The philosophical 
truth and the language of our senses could by no other figure 
be so beautifully intertwined and enwoven together. 

The first day's work, on this view, was the breaking of atmo- 
spheric light through the dense vaporous mass, which had 
wrapped in utter gloom all the surface of our planet. The 
second, which next followed, was the formation of the sensible 
expanse, or a middle region of clearer atmosphere, separating 
the waters depositing fast below, but still covering the hills as 
well as the plains, from those withdrawn upward from that 
enormous sea of mist by passing into pure, invisible vapour once 
more. The firmament or expanse is not, strictly, the air itself, 
still less a solid vault falsely conceived to exist, but the visible 
hemisphere of the sky which encloses the earth and sea every- 
where to the senses of mankind, where the birds appear to fly 
and the clouds to move, and the sun, moon, and stars to revolve 
in their daily circuit round the earth. 

IX. The Third Day. 

The theory of day periods is supported by two main argu- 
ments. The first is the asserted continuity of the tertiary and 
human periods, excluding the idea of any break between them, 
so complete and entire as to answer to the features of the six 
days' work. But here the statements of Hugh Miller, Lyell, 
and Page are met by positive counter-statements of D'Orbigny, 
professedly based on the largest and widest induction from ten 
or twenty thousand fossil species. The other argument is the 
correspondence of the Azoic, Carboniferous, Saurian, and Ter- 
tiary Ages with the general characters of the Second, Third, 
Fifth, and Sixth Days. 

The first and most signal defect in this analogy is the want 
of any clear counterpart to the First and Fourth Mosaic days. 
The correspondence, also, of the Second Day with the Palaeozoic 
Period is evidently vague and hypothetical ; and the first clear 
resemblance is between the Third Day and what Hugh Miller 
styles " the gorgeous flora of the Carboniferous Period." But here 
we are met by a double objection of a very decisive kind. First, 



508 THE BIBLE AND MODEEN THOUGHT. 

the plants and fruits of the second day are plainly those which 
are said to be given for food, both to Adam and the beasts and 
fowls, on the sixth day, and cannot, therefore, denote ferns 
which had been burned into solid coal long before Adam was 
made, or the present races of animals and birds were in being. 
And next, the character of fruit-trees yielding fruit after their 
kind is wholly wanting, and strikingly reversed, in the tree 
ferns, reeds, and club-mosses of the coal measures. Among 
these copious vegetable fossils hardly a trace of a fruit-bearing 
plant has been discovered. In the Creative Week, p. 331, 
the force of this objection is owned to be decisive. I have 
stated it elsewhere in these words : — 

" The fruits of the third day are distinctly assigned to Adam 
for his food, and its herbage to the cattle. But the carboniferous 
flora, however ' gorgeous ' to the fascinated eyes of the geologist, 
was quite unsuited even in its days of palmy splendour, to be 
the food of men and cattle, and must have been buried deep in 
the bowels of the earth for long ages before man appeared. The 
prominent character is not vegetation in the abstract, but 
herbage suitable for cattle, and fruits after various kinds for the 
use of man. But these are precisely the characters which are 
entirely absent in the vegetation of the Carboniferous Age, 
which consists of cryptogamous and fruitless plants, and is 
called a flora by scientific courtesy alone." (Christian Ob- 
server, July, 1858, p. 566.) 

Dr. M'Caul, then, wisely abandons the attempt to identify 
the Carboniferous Period with the third Mosaic day. He writes 
on the subject as follows, after a general assertion that the days 
are periods : — 

" It does not follow that they are to be identified with the 
six periods commonly received in geology. Indeed, to those 
who have no theory to establish, it is apparent that they do not 
agree. . . . This is evident from the fact that of the work of 
two days in the Mosaic account, geology knows nothing, and 
astronomy nothing certain — namely, the first, in which light 
was called forth, and the fourth day, when the sun and planetary 
system were perfected. ... So far as the Mosaic record is con- 
cerned, the two first days may include the whole of the primary, 
secondary, and tertiary formations, with all their products, their 
flora and their fauna. The products of those periods, buried in 



NOTES. 509 

the earth, were, as far as we know, utterly unknown to the 
Israelites and their contemporaries, and to mankind for many 
ages after. Even to ourselves the knowledge is recent. For 
Moses to mention them was not only unnecessary, but would 
have been altogether out of place. Such details would have 
encumbered the outline and turned away the attention from God 
the Creator to things at that time unintelligible. The object of 
the narrative is to explain the origin of the universe and its 
parts, as they were known and visible to men of that day. So 
soon, then, as he has mentioned the light and ether, he advances 
at once to the preparation of the earth for man ; and the third 
day presents the dry land in its present state, with its flora 
differing from the previous geological stages. . . . The words of 
Moses, ' Let the dry land appear,' are in exact accordance with 
what geology teaches. The rise of the ocean had buried the 
tertiary world in its waters." He then quotes the passage in 
Lardner's Pre-adamite Earth, on the convulsion that raised the 
Alps and Chilian Ancles, winch I have used before for the 
same purpose. (Lardner, Mus. xii. § 552 — 555 ; Christian Ob- 
server, Jan. 1858, p. 33.) 

With regard, then, to four of the Mosaic clays, Dr. M'Caul aban- 
dons the attempt to spread them over the ages of geology, and 
applies them, nearly as on the literal view, to the formation of the 
existing fauna and flora, and the distribution of land and sea in 
the human or post-tertiary period alone. He admits, also, fully the 
distinctness of the first and second verses from the six days, so 
as to allow, in critical exactness, the laj3se of an unknown and 
indefinite period of time. And hence the question must arise, 
What reason can there be for deserting the literal sense of the 
days, in order to replace it by the immense disproportion of clay 
periods, which his modification of Hugh Miller's theory implies ? 
Two days, on this view, are to include all the immense ages 
from the first extraction of our planet out of a parent nebula to 
the end of the tertiary period, and four others describe the 
comparatively brief transition to the actual world, after the 
last convulsion, which raised the Alps and Andes to their vast 
elevation. Surely it is far simpler and more natural to accept 
completely the view, two-thirds of which have inevitably to be 
received, and that optical construction of the history which all 
Scripture conspires to justify, rather than to suppose the great 



510 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

ordinance of the sabbath based on an arbitrary partition of the 
Divine process of creation into six periods, immensely and 
enormously disproportionate to each other. Accepting, then, 
the literal view of the days, the words of the text will agree 
fully with the natural inference from the facts of geology. The 
dry land, on this view, with its hills and valleys, its mountain sum- 
mits and entire geographical arrangement, was really complete 
before the third day, but was hidden from view. The Divine 
fiat is, " Let the waters be gathered together into one place, 
and let the dry land appear." No change is implied in the land 
itself, but in the waters of the deep alone. Before, they con- 
cealed and covered the whole, and they have now to retire 
within their proper bounds. The words of Psalm civ. offer the 
same view : " They go up by the mountains, they go down by 
the valleys, to the place thou hast founded for them. Thou 
hast set them a bound they may not pass, nor turn again to 
cover the earth." Once disrobed of the waters, which ab- 
normally concealed its whole surface, the dry land appeared, 
with the features it has since retained through the whole course 
of human history. 

X. The Fourth Day. 

On the work of the fourth day Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Eorison, and 
Dr. M'Caul all differ from each other, and all are opposed to the 
view I have maintained in my text. Their arguments only 
strengthen my conviction of its truth. I will examine, first, 
the statement in the Creative Week, and then the view of 
Dr. M'Caul, whose learning and cautious style of thought claim 
a fuller notice. Mr. Eorison writes as follows : — 

" On the fourth day light is consigned to light-bearers, passes 
from its state of diffusion into celestial receptacles, is located 
and concentrated in sun, moon, and stars. The text says that 
these were made, and therefore means that they were made, not 
made to appear. Had this latter been the theory to be 
expressed, the sacred writer who had just set down, ' Let the 
dry land appear,' had every facility for expressing it. But just 
as God made the firmament, or made the beast of the earth, or 
made man, it is affirmed that he made two great lights, and also 
the stars. There is an end of all ingenuousness in the inter- 
pretation of Scripture, if we foist, in one of these examples, a 
meaning on made which it bears in none of the others. No 



NOTES. 511 

honest doubts can be appeased by recourse to transparent 
makeshifts. . . . It is preposterous to maintain that fecit 
luminaria can be naturally rendered ' He made the sun and 
moon become visible,' or ' he cleared away the clouds.' Such 
is not the meaning which the text puts into an unbiassed reader, 
but that which a biassed reader, or an embarrassed contro- 
versialist, for a purpose of his own puts into the text. The 
foundations of faith would indeed be precarious, if they depended 
for their solidity on such artifices of interpretation." 

If strength of assertion were the same with forcible argument or 
logical clearness of thought, the Fifth Essayist would have gained 
here a very powerful ally in his effort to destroy our faith in the 
Mosaic record. For if the account professes " in the plainest of 
plain language " to record creation as a fact, not an idea, and 
still places the creation of the solid masses of the sun, moon, 
and stars just two days after the creation of our atmosphere, one 
day after the appearance of dry land, and two days before the 
creation of man ; then, whether the days be literal or figurative, 
the travesty on all the natural conclusions of science would be 
complete. The Mosaic record may, perhaps, still set up some 
claim to be an elegant fiction, with strophes neatly balanced ; 
but the charge of the fifth Essay will be proved, that it is a 
wretchedly mistaken guess at the origin of the world. Such a 
style of defence, so rash in assertion and contradictory in logic, 
is, in my opinion, more dangerous to the faith of Christians than 
even the Essay to which it is a nominal reply. 

The whole of this extract is a sophism of the plainest kind. 
The view so intemperately condemned does not require the 
word made to be strained in the least from its proper and usual 
meaning. But it maintains that the sun, moon, and stars, both 
here and throughout the Scriptures, refer to the visible lights as 
they appear moving in the sky, and not to globular and opaque 
masses of matter in the depths of space. Why else do we read 
not only of sunrise and sunset, but of the sun waxing hot, going 
back ten degrees, darkened in his going forth, standing still in 
'G-ibeon, going forth in his might, coming forth as a bridegroom 
from his chamber, covered with a cloud, turned into darkness, 
standing still in his habitation, moving forward at the light of 
God's arrows, and, in fine, " divided unto all nations under 
heaven ?" Why else do we read constantly of new moons, of the 



512 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

moon turned into blood, standing still in the valley of Ajalon, 
walking in brightness, or turned into darkness ? Why else do 
we read of the Assyrian setting his nest among the stars, or the 
stars in their courses fighting against Sisera, or of the stars 
falling from heaven, as a leaf from the vine, and a falling fig 
from the fig-tree ? In short, out of hundreds of passages in the 
Bible not one can be found where the sun, moon, and stars are 
not defined as lights circling through the sky, visible to the 
senses of all men. Never once are they spoken of with reference 
to their mechanical mass and solid structure, as bodies in 
abstract space, or as they are defined in treatises of physical 
astronomy alone. 

An appeal is made, however, to ver. 17 in disproof of this 
optical construction of the passage : " They are first made, and 
then set to give light," etc. But the words really prove just the 
reverse. The phrase, Let there be lights in the firmament, 
etc., corresponds exactly with, Let there be light on the first 
clay. There it denotes evidently not the creation of a sub- 
stance, a luminous ether, but, in the words of the apostle, 
" causing light to shine out of darkness." It is the phenomenon, 
recurring ever by a fixed law, and not the secret, unknown 
cause, or elastic ether, as detected by men of science, to which 
the Divine fiat plainly refers. The same must equally be true 
in the second case. The lights are set in the firmament, or visible 
face of the sky, and are not solid globes of matter disposed 
through infinite space. They are described with reference to 
their visible brightness alone, the sun and the moon, two great 
lights, the stars, collectively, much inferior; the sun, the 
greater of the two great lights, to rule the day ; the moon, the 
less of the great lights, to rule the night. The distinction between 
verse 16 and verses 17 and 18 is plainly no contrast between the 
formation of solid globes and their being endued with luminous 
properties ; but between the first making of these visible lights, 
by their becoming visible in the heavenly vault, and the Divine 
ordinance for their lasting continuance in their settled courses 
round the earth. I repeat, then, once more, that this construc- 
tion of the passage, far from being a violent gloss, a make- 
shift and evasion for purposes of controversy, as Mr. Goodwin 
and Mr. Borison untruly affirm, is the only construction 
which can be received without doing violence to the constant 



NOTES. 513 

usage of Scripture and the language of the text itself. The 
wide adoption of an opposite view "is due simply to the 
denaturalization of some minds, through dwelling amidst the 
mechanical relations of physical astronomy, till they reverse the 
laws of criticism and the facts of history, and put light for dark- 
ness and darkness for light, while fastening a charge of contra- 
diction to science upon the word of God." 

Dr. M'Caul, once more, though his view seems to me imper- 
fect, comes at least much nearer to what I believe to be the 
truth, and distinguishes broadly between the solar mass and its 
luminous power. 

" Moses does not say that the body of the sun, or moon, and 
stars were created on the fourth day, but according to the 
Hebrew, God said, Let there be light-holders in the firmament 
of heaven. . . . And God gave them in the firmament of heaven 
to give light upon the earth, and the stars. The word asah 
j may mean to make ready, prepare, dress (see Gesenius.) The 
creation of the sun or parent globe may be included in ver. 1, 
and the work of the fourth day consisted in furnishing it with 
its luminous atmosphere. When tins took place, and the sun 
began to shed its light, the moon, and the earth's fellow-planets, 
the stars of ver. 16, became luminaries also. The stars of this 
verse are certainly different from those morning stars of which 
Job speaks, which were in existence long before. As connected 
with the sun and moon they seem naturally to mean those 
belonging to the solar system, which received their light on the 
fourth day, when the sun became luminous. . . . Modern science 
proves that the earth and light might exist, and according to 
scientific theory probably did exist, before the sun, and it is no 
longer difficult to conceive how there might be also a measure 
of time." 

This is certainly ingenious, and in approaching nearer to the 
optical construction of the text, gets rid of one main perplexity ; 
but it does not, I think, satisfy fully the requirements either of 
exact criticism or of natural science. On the side of science 
there seems a strong presumption that, if the sun was condensed 
gradually, its luminous atmosphere was formed gradually also 
during the same process, and was not a separate and later 
addition ; and also that it was luminous during the ages of 
geology, or at least long before the tertiary period came to a 

2 L 



514 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

close. On the side of the text it seems almost self-evident that 
the stars cannot be confined to the planets, but must include the 
fixed stars, as in every other passage in the Bible where the 
word is used. Nor does the surrounding of an opaque globe of 
immense size by a luminous atmosphere answer at all to the 
natural meaning of a light being set in the firmament of heaven. 

Once let us realize the practical aim of the inspired narrative, 
and the whole difficulty, in my opinion, disappears. Its purpose 
is, first, to affirm the great truth that the living God is the 
Creator of all things ; and next, to reveal those acts of Divine 
power, by which our earth was prepared for the dwelling-place 
of man ; which were so ordered, by the wisdom of God, as to 
form a basis for the earliest of Divine ordinances, the weekly 
Sabbath. The first verse, then, affirms broadly that God created 
the heavens and the earth. Here the heavens include the 
highest heavens of glory, and the higher heavens of sidereal 
space ; but to these no further allusion is made in the rest of 
the narrative. The earth of verse 1 is their exclusive subject. 
We are told, next, that this " earth was without form and void, 
and darkness on the face of the raging deep, and the Spirit 
brooding on the face of the waters." As the heavens of theology 
and of physical astronomy were passed over before, so now in 
like manner we leave behind the buried worlds of geology, and 
the account confines itself to the preparation of our planet, 
in six days, for the abode of man. All the changes announced 
were thus within the outer limit of the earth's atmosphere. In 
three days the confused chaos was exchanged for the ordered 
outline of a habitable world; by the diffusion of light, the 
bipartition of the vault above, or firmament, from the deep 
below ; and the visible separation of dry land from the sea, and 
its becoming clothed with verdure and adorned with trees, fruits, 
and flowers. In three more days, definite lights were disposed 
and constituted in the firmament, to revolve daily round the 
earth ; and the sea and air, and finally the land, received their 
inhabitants, the creation of man being the crown and topstone-of 
the whole. 

The sun, the moon, and the stars, as light-bearers in the 
terrestrial firmament, depend on the concurrence of three or 
four distinct causes or physical conditions — the matter of the 
sun, our satellite, the planets and the fixed stars — the luminous 



NOTES. 515 

atmosphere of the sun, and perhaps of the fixed stars, and the 
reflective power of the moon and planets — the earth's revolution 
on its axis — and certain powers of transparency and steady 
transmission of light in the terrestrial atmosphere. Let all 
these causes be in existence, except the last, and there would be 
no light-bearers in our firmament, no sun, moon, and stars in 
the Bible sense, appointed for seasons, and divided unto all the 
nations under heaven. In the style of Scripture, the effect of 
grand atmospheric convulsions is to turn the sun into darkness 
and the moon into blood, and make the stars fall from heaven, 
' as a figtree casteth her figs when shaken by the wind. And 
hence the making of these lights, and their constitution in the 
firmament, by all the laws of criticism, must bear a similar 
meaning. Turned from the language of sense to that of science, 
it must denote neither the condensation of a nebulous mass, nor 
the clothing of an immense globe in distant space with an 
ethereal atmosphere, nor the attachment of a satellite to a 
planet, nor the scattering of distant suns and systems through 
depths of space ; but such a work of Divine power on our ter- 
restrial atmosphere, as ensured henceforward, the visible appari- 
tion of these revolving lights before the eyes of mankind and all 
the lower animals, to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, 
and for years, and to divide light from darkness throughout the 
earth. 

XI. The Fifth and Sixth Days. 

The two recent essays have no remarks on the work of these 
days, which seem to call for distinct notice. The Creative Week, 
viewing the whole as a poem, contends simply that this poem 
' " assimilates the results of scientific research,'' by its upward 
progress, terminating in man. Dr. M'Caul, again, abandons the 
attempt of Hugh Miller, Mac Causland, and others, to identify the 
fifth day with the Saurian epoch, and the sixth with the tertiary 
and human periods, and refers them both to the creation of 
existing land and sea animals, after the tertiary period had come 
to its close. There is here, therefore, no subject of direct con- 
troversy with either Essayist. The sole question left is, whether 
the conclusions of geology interpose here any difficulty in the 
way of the literal view. 

Now it seems plain that, while modern science can scarcely 
be claimed as a positive witness to the truth of the sacred record 



616 THE BIBLE AND MODEKN THOUGHT. 

of these two days, it offers no presumption on the other side. 
It teaches us, first, by a long and wide induction, the com- 
parative recency of the creation or appearance of man. On the 
question whether the existing species of animals are strictly 
contemporary with man, or partly anterior, and common to the 
tertiary stage, geologists themselves appear to disagree. The 
names, Eocene, Meiocene, Pleiocene, and Pleistocene, suggested 
by Lyell for the sub-divisions of that era, all assume that a 
smaller or larger proportion of the species are common with 
those of the actual world. The conclusion of D'Orbigny, re- 
sumed by Lardner, is just the reverse, and professes to be 
founded on a strict and numerical observation of 6042 fossil 
species of the tertiary strata. It is formally stated in these 
words : " Each period (of the five tertiary) has its own special 
fauna, having nothing in common with those of the preceding 
and succeeding periods. . . The waters, lifted from their beds by 
this immense perturbation, swept over the continents with irre- 
sistible force, destroying the entire fauna and flora of the last 
tertiary period, and burying its ruins in the sedimentary deposits 
which ensued." 

But setting aside this direct and weighty testimony, let us 
consider, on abstract grounds, whether this or the opposite is 
the more reasonable view. It is admitted in common that 
men come latest in the series of geology, that far the greater 
part of existing species are not found in the tertiary remains, 
and still less in earlier periods, and the question to be 
answered is, whether all existing species are new, or a few from 
the earlier, and many more from the later tertiary times, have 
survived till the appearance of man. Unless we accept the 
atheistic theory complete, that man himself is an accidental 
development from the fish or monkey, acts of creative power 
must be admitted on either view. Which, then, is the more 
natural view, and more worthy of the Divine wisdom, to suppose 
new species dropped one by one, at long intervals, on the earth's 
surface, old ones dying out, and singly replaced by others ; till 
man comes at last, unattended, and stealing unmarked upon 
the scene ; or that the advent of man, the lord of this lower 
world, was signalized by a new creation, complete in all its 
parts, after an old and incomplete animal creation had been swept 



NOTES. 517 

the latter view is far superior in moral congruity, and implies 
a worthier conception of the wisdom of the Divine Architect, 
and a juster and truer view of man's actual place in the history 
of the world. 

XII. General Conclusion. 

The true meaning of the Seventh Day, or Divine Sabbath, has 
been considered already. It remains only to offer a few con- 
cluding observations. 

In the course of this sacred narrative, day, night, heaven, 
earth, seas, are represented as receiving their names from the 
voice or ordinance of God. This cannot reasonably be referred 
to the appointment of their Hebrew synonyms, even before man 
was placed upon the earth. It must evidently refer to their 
Divine constitution, as abiding facts or objects of human expe- 
rience in all future time. Each was to be a definite and well- 
known feature of the new-formed world. It follows, naturally, 
that the first day-time, like the sixth and seventh, and those 
which followed, must be a daytime in the sense familarly known 
ever since to all mankind. It was equally within the Divine 
power to compress the work of creation into a single hour, or 
to extend it through long ages. But this work of creation, 
so far as discernible by human senses, was arranged to be a 
Divine pattern for man's imitation. " Six days shalt thou labour, 
and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the 
Lord thy God. For in six days the Lord made heaven and 
earth, and rested the seventh day." But the days named here 
and elsewhere received their definition, when God called the 
light, Day — a permanent name, and the" darkness he called 
Night — a permanent name also ; and the evening and the morn- 
ing were the first day. Viewed in the light of modern science, 
these words imply not only the diurnal revolution of our planet, 
but also some fixed place of observation on its surface. If the 
earth were ever self-luminous, as well as self-heated, before the sun 
had its light-giving power, science not only does not justify, but 
strongly repels the hypothesis, of successive fits of light and 
darkness over its whole surface. Or again, assuming the solar 
atmosphere to be the real fountain of the light winch dawned on 
the first day, though the sun had not yet become a distinct light 
in the earth's firmament, still to an observer in space, there 



518 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

could be no alternations of niglit and day, but only two per- 
manent hemispheres of light and darkness, unbroken and con- 
tinuous. Thus a close examination forces us to the conclusion 
that a point of sight on the earth's surface must be assumed from 
first to last ; and when once this truth is frankly accepted, with 
all its consequences, the seeming difficulties pass away. They 
arise only, as the Fifth Essayist truly remarks, " when we 
seek to import a meaning into language which it certainly never 
could have conveyed to those to whom it was originally ad- 
dressed." His error consists in reversing completely the true 
application of his own remark, and striving to foist upon the 
words of Moses a meaning wholly foreign to the usage of 
Scripture, which could never possibly have suggested itself to 
the first readers — a meaning borrowed from the recent discoveries 
of the last three hundred years, and to which there is no allusion 
in Scripture from its beginning to its close. For the Bible is a 
Divine message, not to a few philosophers and men of science 
since the days of Copernicus and Galileo, of Leibnitz, Hutton, 
and Werner, but to Israel in the days of Egypt, and to all 
mankind in every later age. 

But there is also a secret and indirect harmony between the 
recent discoveries of geology, and the words of the Mosaic 
record. According to those discoveries, the six days' work, up 
to the middle of the last day, was a work of reparation, and the 
new creation, thus far, had only risen to the level of one which 
had previously passed away, and been buried in ruins. So 
far the work, then, proceeds simply by fiats of Divine power. 
But when we reach this limit, there is a consultation, as if 
some great change, for the first time, were to be wrought in 
the scheme of Providence. Animal creations, without a moral 
head, had successively failed. The forces of nature, and mere 
animal instinct, uncontrolled by a higher rule, had issued in 
ruin. A governor was needed to control these lower creatures, 
and maintain the unity and harmony of the Maker's work. 
" And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our like- 
ness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the 
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the 
earth. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be 



NOTES. 519 

fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it." 
The past anarchy of a merely animal creation was now to be 
replaced by the dignity of a well-ordered kingdom. Man, was 
to be the head and lord of all the lower creatures, and subject 
himself, with conscious intelligence, to his Maker and his God. 

Thus the whole course of Providence, revealed in the far past 
by modern science, and in the future by Divine prophecy, 
reveals a threefold succession, rising higher and higher in dignity ; 
first, the animal, next, the moral, and last, the spiritual. Creation 
is first stored with life, but life animal and perishable. The 
trial is made through successive periods, but the final issue is 
confusion and darkness. The Spirit of God broods on the face 
of the waters. A new and higher creation springs to birth, 
formed with prospective reference to man, the moral head, who 
was to subdue the earth, and rule its inhabitants, and has a last- 
ing obligation to rest from work on days of holy worship. But 
man falls into sin. A moral disorder, worse than natural con- 
fusion, enters this creation, till " darkness covers the earth, and 
gross darkness the people." Then a higher and nobler work 
begins. It dawns in the first promise in Paradise, and reveals 
itself by slow degrees, till the Sun of righteousness arises with 
healing in his wings. The old creation begins the Old Testament, 
and the new creation is the starting point of the Gospel. The 
first great work of that new creation is the incarnation of the 
Son of God, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us, 
the spiritual and everlasting Head of the new creation of God. 
We pass on to the close of the Divine record ; and we see, by 
the light of prophecy, this third and last stage accomplished, 
the new creation complete, and linked for ever, by its Divine 
and glorious Head, to the throne of the invisible King. " And 
he that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things 
new. And he said unto me, Write, for these words are true and 
faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and 
Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is 
athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." The threefold 
progress is now finished. The plan of the Creator is perfected. 
The animal stage has passed away, to be succeeded by the moral ; 
the moral, fallen and corrupt, has been succeeded by the spiritual. 
" The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is the 



520 THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 

Lord from heaven." The Alpha, explored dimly by human 
science, is also the Omega, revealed dimly by the visions of 
inspired prophecy. The scheme of Providence has reached its 
consummation, the climax is complete. " For of Him, and through 
Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory for ever. 
Amen." 



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